Ahead of yesterday’s US House of Representatives hearing on the “Europe’s Threat to American Speech and Innovation“, more than 30 academics researching the EU Digital Services Act and civil liberties sent an open letter to Rep. Jim Jordan and Commissioner Henna Virkkunen.

We wrote to correct persistent misconceptions that the DSA is a tool for censorship, particularly those included in the recent House of Representatives staff’s report on the DSA. We set the record straight with respect to DSA’s risk management framework, lawful content regulation, trusted flaggers, out-of-court dispute settlement bodies, codes of practice, speech disparities between the US/EU, and the question of extraterritoriality.

The two letters explain why the DSA is a balanced piece of legislation that is rightly intended to empower users. The law was adopted with the purpose of advancing the expression rights of users by giving them procedural rights and more control regarding the moderation of their content by online platforms. The letters also identify some opportunities for clarification of the DSA to prevent further confusion in other jurisdictions.

If you wish to sign the letters, you are an expert in the field, and are affiliated with an academic institution, you can email me at martin (at) husovec (dot) eu.

• Open letter to Rep. Jim Jordan
• Open letter to Commissioner Henna Virkkunen

Initial list of signatories:

• Prof. Martin Husovec, Associate Professor of Law, LSE Law School, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and Founder of Platform Regulation Academy
• Joan Barata, Visiting Professor, Catholic University Porto (Católica-Porto) and Senior Expert at Platform Regulation Academy
• Berin Szóka, President, TechFreedom and Ph.D. candidate, Dublin City University
• Prof. Andrej Savin, Professor in IT Law & Internet Law, Copenhagen Business School
• Prof. Damian Tambini, Associate Professor and Distinguished Fellow., Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science
• Prof. Andrew Murray, Dean of the LSE Law School, London School of Economics and Political Science
• Prof. João Pedro Quintais, Associate Professor, University of Amsterdam, Institute for Information Law (IViR)
• Prof. Matthias C. Kettemann, Department of Theory and Future of Law, University of Innsbruck, Austria
• Prof. Catalina Goanta, Associate Professor, Utrecht University
• Dr. Ethan Shattock, Lecturer in Law, Queens University Belfast
• Prof. Joris van Hoboken, Professor of Information Law, Institute for Information Law (IViR), Amsterdam Law School, University of Amsterdam and founding director of the DSA Observatory
• Prof. Lorna Woods, Emeritus Professor, Essex Law School, University of Essex
• Prof. Giovanni De Gregorio, Professor of Law and Technology, Católica Global School of Law, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Lisbon
• Prof. Sally Broughton Micova, Assoc. Professor of Communications Policy and Politics, University of East Anglia
• Prof. Adriana Iamnitchi, Maastricht University
• Prof. Suzanne Vergnolle, Associate Professor and Director of the Chair on Content Moderation, Cnam
• Dr. Stefania Di Stefano, Postdoctoral researcher at the Chair on Content Moderation, Cnam
• Dr. Zuzana Adamova, Assistant Professor, Trnava University
• Prof. Martin Kretschmer, Professor of Intellectual Property Law and Director of CREATe (Centre for Regulation of the Creative Economy), University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK
• Prof. Lilian Edwards, Emerita Professor of Law, Information and Society, Newcastle University and Honorary Professor, CREATe, University of Glasgow
• Daphne Keller, Director of Platform Regulation, Stanford Program in Law, Science, and Technology
• Dr. Adriana Mutu. Assistant Professor, ESIC Business & Marketing School, Spain
• Sophie Stalla-Bourdillon, Co-Director of the Brussels Privacy Hub, Law, Science, Technology & Society, Vrije Universiteit Brussel., Brussels
• Prof. Kate Klonick, Associate Professor St. John’s University School of Law
• Dr Paddy Leerssen, Postdoctoral researcher, University of Amsterdam
• Prof. Vanessa Mak, Professor of Civil law, Leiden University
• Prof. Dan Jerker B. Svantesson, Professor Faculty of Law, Bond University
• Dr. Matus Mesarcik, Associate Professor, Comenius University
• Prof. Anupam Chander, Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Law and Technology, Georgetown University School of Law
• Dr. Iva Nenadić, Assistant Professor, European University Institute and University of Dubrovnik
• Prof. Maria Bielikova, Director of Kempelen Institute of Intelligent Technologies
• Rachel Griffin, Doctoral researcher, Sciences Po Law School

Additional signatories:

• Prof. Kyung Sin Park, Professor of Law, Korea University Law School
• Prof. Gianclaudio Malgieri, Associate Professor of Law & Technology and a Board Member at eLaw – Centre for Law and Digital Technologies
• Prof. Alain Strowel, Professor at UCLouvain