Digital Policy Lab '20 Companion Papers

The document provides a comprehensive analysis of the shift from content-based 'notice-and-takedown' regulation to systemic 'safety-by-design' approaches. It evaluates the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA) and the UK's Online Safety Bill, emphasizing the need for transparency, data access for researchers, and a balance between state, corporate, and individual power to protect liberal democratic values in the digital sphere.

• Current transparency reports from tech companies are insufficient for a holistic understanding of online harms, as they often provide only a partial story and fail to reveal the true scale of deceptive activity.
• Internal evidence from platforms suggests that recommendation algorithms can actively drive users toward extremist content; for example, a 2016 internal Facebook report indicated that 64% of people who joined an extremist group did so because the algorithm recommended it.
• The EU's Digital Services Act (DSA) introduces a tiered system of due diligence, with the most stringent 'supervised risk management' obligations applied to Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs), defined as those with more than 45 million average monthly active recipients in the EU.
• The UK's proposed Online Safety Bill centers on a statutory 'duty of care' enforced by Ofcom, requiring companies to take reasonable steps to reduce the risk of content that causes 'significant physical or psychological harm to individuals'.
• There is a critical tension between 'content-based' regulation, which risks 'overblocking' to avoid fines, and 'systemic' regulation, which focuses on the design of policies and processes to prevent harm proactively.
• The document identifies five competing models for the future of the internet: the Corporate (Silicon Valley) model, the Autocratic (Beijing) model, the Libertarian model, the Machine (AI-governed) model, and the EU (Liberal Democratic) model.
• Germany's Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG) requires platforms with over 2 million users to remove 'manifestly illegal' content within 24 hours or face fines up to €50 million.
• The 'Machine Internet' model represents a shift where AI and trustless technologies like blockchain and encryption automate decision-making, potentially operating outside of state or corporate oversight.

APA

Colliver, C., Comerford, M., King, J., Krasodomski-Jones, A., Schwieter, C., & Tuck, H. (2021). Digital Policy Lab '20 Companion Papers. Institute for Strategic Dialogue. https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/EN-DPL-Companion_Papers-12Apr.pdf

Chicago

Colliver, Chloe, Milo Comerford, Jennie King, Alex Krasodomski-Jones, Christian Schwieter, and Henry Tuck. Digital Policy Lab '20 Companion Papers. Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2021. https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/EN-DPL-Companion_Papers-12Apr.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Colliver |first1=Chloe |last2=Comerford |first2=Milo |last3=King |first3=Jennie |last4=Krasodomski-Jones |first4=Alex |last5=Schwieter |first5=Christian |last6=Tuck |first6=Henry |title=Digital Policy Lab '20 Companion Papers |publisher=Institute for Strategic Dialogue |date=2021 |url=https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/EN-DPL-Companion_Papers-12Apr.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{colliver2021digital, author = {Colliver, Chloe and Comerford, Milo and King, Jennie and Krasodomski-Jones, Alex and Schwieter, Christian and Tuck, Henry}, title = {{Digital Policy Lab '20 Companion Papers}}, institution = {Institute for Strategic Dialogue}, year = {2021}, url = {https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/EN-DPL-Companion_Papers-12Apr.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }