Ethereum’s co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, criticised the EU’s Digital Service Act (DSA) as an immature move that will curb internet freedom and free speech. “The idea that there should be ‘no space’ for something you dislike is fundamentally a totalitarian and anti-pluralistic impulse. It’s incompatible with being in an environment that you do not fully control,” he warned in his recent X post.
The EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) has remained controversial since its introduction in 2022 and its enforcement in 2024. Critics largely argue that the legislation is poorly crafted, with vague terms such as “misinformation,” “disinformation,” and “hate speech,” which could give regulatory bodies narrative control over what is legal and what is illegal. This would lead to the removal of online content according to the whims of government and regulatory institutions.
What is DSA and How Will it affect EU Citizens?
The EU’s Digital Service Act (DSA) is a landmark legislation that will affect content moderation in almost all internet services used by citizens of countries in the European Union. The law aims to create safer and fairer digital spaces by tightening regulations against illegal content, increasing platform transparency, and holding intermediaries accountable.
It mandates transparency in algorithms, prompt content removal by platforms ( 24 hours for VLOPs), annual detailed reports, and monetary punishment for non-compliance. The fines go up to 6% of the global revenue of platforms. Leaving little room for non-complacency for large platforms, and overburdening smaller platforms.
The regulation applies to smaller platforms and larger platforms (VLOPs) like Meta and X alike. The law undoubtedly renders robust user protection rights since the users will have a favourable legal ground to fight against harassment, cyberbullying, and harmful content. But the critics fear that sloppy crafting of the law might reduce it to a tool for dystopian censorship eventually.
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What Buterin and Critics Fear
The critics fear that this “Sanitization” effort by the European Union explicitly equates fringe ideas with “Pathogens” that need to be wiped off completely. This very idea of giving no space for dissent and odd ideas is contradictory to being a free society. Hence, what started as a move to make “what is illegal offline remains illegal online,” could regress into building a
“The machinery of technocratic authoritarianism.”
Buterin also argues that being a free society comes with some concomitant undesirable elements. “Some people, somewhere, will be selling things that you consider dangerous and saying things you consider disinformation and vicious lies,” he said, highlighting that some free cities come at a cost. He redefined the goal to be to build an environment where the illegal or unethical actors don’t dominate; instead of enforcing heavy censorship in an attempt to completely eradicate harmful content at the cost of freedom.
Algorithmic Transparency: The Alternative That Doesn’t Curb Internet Freedom
Vitalik Buterin points to the social media algorithms as the real culprit behind the amplification of ethically questionable content. He says that fringe and morally grey corners do exist in the web, yet their seldom existence would not lead to the spread of such ideas. Hence, it’s the algorithms that favor such content that need regulation and not the content itself.
He proposes that social media algorithms can be designed to push back against harmful content by incentivizing platforms to do so. He also pushes for transparency, where the platforms publish their algorithms every 1-2 years with zk-proofs (Zero-Knowledge Proofs). Such an approach would regulate harmful content while preserving pluralism and internet freedom.
