Know your Online Rights
What are your online rights? (Original title: Know your Online Rights)
The Digital Services Act has created new rights for users and offers new opportunities to enforce your rights against online platforms and social media. Know your rights and help us hold platforms to account!
1. more freedom of choice
Platforms shape your online experience and determine what content is recommended to you. Non-transparent recommendation systems, which are designed to show you certain content more often and provoke a reaction, are suspected of spreading harmful content such as misinformation and contributing to social polarization.
The Digital Services Act provides more opportunities for users to decide what their feed looks like. New rules also ensure greater transparency.
What are your rights?
- Online platforms need to offer you more than one recommendation algorithm to choose from. Recommendation systems determine what content you see and the order in which it appears in your feed or on the "For You" page
- Online platforms must not use misleading design ('dark patterns') that can be manipulative or limit your ability to make free and informed choices
- Online platforms must explain to their users how their algorithmic recommendation systems work in a way that is easy to understand
2. fairer and more transparent moderation
By moderating content, online platforms decide who is heard and who is not, and often do not explain why certain content was removed (or why no action was taken against reported content). This often makes content moderation seem arbitrary and incomprehensible.
The Digital Services Act obliges online platforms to introduce new and standardized reporting channels. This will make it easier for you to report harmful or illegal content. If your account or content has been removed or restricted, the platforms must inform you and give reasons.
What are your rights?
- If online platforms remove or restrict your account or content, they must give reasons for doing so and explain what you can do if you disagree with the decision.
- Online platforms need to make it easy to report content that you suspect is illegal or harmful.
- Online platforms must regularly publish transparency reports in which they explain how much content or accounts they remove or block and for what reasons.
3. easier to lodge a complaint
It is often difficult to submit complaints to platforms or have moderation decisions reviewed. It is often unclear to users who they can turn to in order to enforce their rights or take action against platforms.
If you have the impression that an online platform is not adhering to the rules, there are various ways for you to lodge a complaint and get support.
What are your rights?
- If you do not agree with a moderation decision, for example the blocking of your account or the restriction of your content, you have three options:
- You can contact the platform's own complaints system to have the decision reviewed
- You can contact an out-of-court arbitration board, which will bring about a (legally non-binding) settlement between you and the platform
- You can go to court
In all of these scenarios, you can be represented by the Center for User Rights of the Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte. Please contact us via our contact form .
- If you suspect that a platform is not complying with the DSA, you can submit a complaint to the Digital Services Coordination Board. This is the competent supervisory authority
- If you have had problems with illegal products or bad experiences with the practices of online marketplaces, you can also complain to the consumer advice center
4. better protection of your privacy
Many platforms use your data to track you and show you personalized online advertising. This can violate your privacy and lead to discrimination.
The Digital Services Act prohibits platforms from misusing sensitive personal data such as your religious beliefs, sexuality or political views to personalize advertising. Minors may no longer be shown personalized ads.
What are your rights?
- You have the right that your sensitive personal data is no longer misused to deliver targeted advertising to you
- If you are a minor, the Digital Services Act ensures that you are no longer shown personalized advertising at all
- For each ad placed on an online platform, you must be provided with information about the ad, including the reason why the ad was shown to you
5. more transparency
As users, we are often left in the dark about why which content is displayed or what happens to our data.
The Digital Services Act has introduced new rules that force online platforms to be more transparent and share information and data. In addition to the aforementioned transparency reports on content moderation, information on advertisements and the functioning of recommendation systems, the Digital Services Act creates further opportunities to understand how our online spaces are designed.
What are your rights?
- Online platforms must explain clearly and easily understandably in their terms of use which content is permitted on their platforms and which is not. Platforms that are primarily used by children and young people must design their terms of use in such a way that children and young people can also easily understand them
- Very large online platforms such as Google and Meta are obliged to be more transparent about online advertising. They must publish information on individual advertisements in an online archive, such as in whose name the advertisement was placed, whether the advertisement was shown to certain groups and how many users were reached
- If you are researching platforms and their risks at an academic institution or as part of civil society, you can submit requests for platform data and access certain data directly. The Center for User Rights can support you in enforcing your claim to research data
6. better protection also on online marketplaces
When shopping on online marketplaces such as Amazon, Shein or Temu, it is often difficult to understand who is offering products for sale and how to protect yourself from fraud.
The Digital Services Act requires online marketplaces to obtain information about sellers and who they do business with.
What are your rights?
- You have the right to know who is behind the sale of goods on an online marketplace. To do this, you can access information about sellers that the online marketplace must publish
- If an online marketplace learns that you have been sold a product that is illegal in the EU, the marketplace must inform you and explain to you how you can defend yourself against it
7. direct contact options
It is often difficult to get in touch with online platforms, and existing channels are often well hidden.
The Digital Services Act requires online platforms to provide a central, easy-to-find and user-friendly point of contact for their users.