Taming the “Free”: Content moderation in the Fediverse and the Role of the DSA: A practical guide for server administrators in the Fediverse

The current legal framework for content moderation in the Digital Services Act (DSA) is focused on centralized digital services. This makes it challenging for decentralized services, such as instances in the Fediverse, to know how to comply with the DSA. To address this issue, this report offers a practical guide for server administrators in the Fediverse to meet the DSA's content moderation obligations. In this practical guide, you will find: - categorization of Fediverse instances under the DSA; - content moderation obligations for all intermediary services; - content moderations obligations for hosting services in particular; as well as - for online platforms in general. In this report instances in the Fediverse are classified as hosting services, to be precise, as online platforms. As an online platform, instances will have to comply with the general content moderation obligations for all intermediary services, as well as the additional obligations for hosting services and online platforms. At the same time, micro or small enterprises are exempt from the additional obligations that online platforms have, which means that instances meeting this exemption are not subject to the additional obligations. To simplify the steps that a server administrator can take to comply with the DSA, this report provides checkboxes to help server administrators determine if they fall under the DSA and, if so, what their obligations are. Additionally, platforms are encouraged to take on further responsibilities by, for example, adopting voluntary codes of conduct. We also conclude that even if an instance does not meet the exact requirements of a micro or small enterprise, full compliance with the additional obligations for online platforms may be less of a focus point for enforcement if you are a relatively small service. Finally, and most importantly, we advise server administrators of small instances to provide transparency in their content moderation practices. This report is written by Emese van Rijnswou and Charlotte Verboom under the supervision of Dr. João Pedro Quintais & Ot van Daalen of the Glushko & Samuelson Information Law and Policy Lab (ILP Lab) of the Institute for Information Law (IViR) of the University of Amsterdam. The ILP Lab is a student-run, IViR-led institution which develops and promotes research-based policy solutions that protect fundamental rights and freedoms in the field of European information law. The report has been written in partnership with the DSA Observatory and European Digital Rights Initiative (EDRi). It reflects the recommendations and conclusions of the authors of the ILP Lab.