The Digital Services Act (DSA) requires designated Very Large Online Platforms and Very Large Online Search Engines (VLOPs and VLOSEs) conduct assessments of the systemic risk of the dissemination of illegal content through their services- and to mitigate such risk where it arises. With regulators, researchers, civil society, and the general public finally due to see the public versions of the first systemic risk assessments conducted by VLOP and VLOSE providers, robust evaluation of the DSA’s systemic risk management approach to the dissemination of illegal content is crucial.
CERRE’s Benchmarks for Evaluating Management of Risk of Terrorist Content Dissemination issue paper contributes to this evaluation by examining the systemic risk management approach to the dissemination terrorist content. Terrorist content is a specific subset of illegal content under the DSA that is also the subject of a complex nexus of other EU legislation, including the TERREG and several transnational initiatives. The determination of terrorist content poses a significant challenge, as authorities and platforms grapple with the use of sophisticated evasive techniques by terrorist actors, including the use of coded content or “beacons”, while also seeking to respect the fundamental rights of platform users.
In this issue paper, author Sally Broughton Micova explores the key definitional issues surrounding terrorist content and maps the ecosystem of actors involved in its risk assessment, mitigation, enforcement, and dissemination. Based on detailed analysis, the paper develops a series of benchmarks and concomitant metrics for the systemic risk evaluation of terrorist content.