Michèle Ledger: CERRE Research Fellow and Expert in the Regulatory Aspects of Online Platforms
Each month CERRE introduces a member of its academic team showcasing their background, introducing the ongoing projects they are working on, and addressing topical cross-cutting issues everyone wants to know about.
Michèle, you are a lawyer by training, can you give us an overview of your expertise and particular research interests?
Well, for the past 25 years, I’ve been observing (through my work at Cullen International) the construction of legislation to shape the digital economy and media sectors in Europe. I think I would describe myself as a ‘generalist’, my interests cover a wide spectrum (also because of the work I do at the CRIDS research centre at the University of Namur) and I enjoy putting the puzzle together. And the puzzle is quite complex: interesting articulations between EU and national rules and also between the different legislative frameworks.
You are a newly appointed CERRE Research Fellow, but you have collaborated with the think tank before. What did your previous project look into?
Yes, I worked with Alexandre de Streel last year on an Issue Paper on the regulatory oversight of the digital economy, which is a subject I’m particularly interested in. Over the years, I’ve been in touch with many media regulators across Europe (and in other regions of the world) and I’ve seen how their work has grown from regulating traditional media to on-demand audiovisual services, now video-sharing platforms, and possibly in a few years other types of platforms! They have their work cut out, but, of course, the challenge they face is huge and they will need a good framework and sufficient resources to be able to do all of this. These are some of the main points we covered in the paper.
Regulating online platforms is such a hot topic right now with the ongoing trilogues for the Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA), what aspects are of most interest to you?
I’m really focussing on the DSA. I find it very interesting as it’s really a ground-breaking piece of legislation, and I’m also convinced that it will evolve over the years. Of course, this phase of law-making is crucial and having independent forums to debate all this is essential which is why CERRE’s work is also crucial and I’m proud to be able to contribute.
You are working on a new research project for CERRE with fellow researcher Sally Broughton Micova that looks into the overlaps and interaction of the DSA and the Audiovisual Media Service Directive (AVMSD). Why is this comparison important? Why look into this now?
Yes, this is an interesting project, and we are also comparing the DSA with the Regulation on the removal of terrorist content online and the UK’s Online Safety Bill. The initiatives cover similar platforms, but not quite the same ones, and similar harms, but again there are important differences. So we want to shed light, highlight differences, overlaps, and loopholes, see if we can live with the differences, and make recommendations. Let’s not forget that the big platforms like Facebook and YouTube will be covered by all these different initiatives and coherence will be key both on substance and on enforcement. All eyes are on Europe and it would be nice to get it right.
The enforcement models for the DSA and AVMSD are different; does this pose any potential issues?
For years, enforcement was barely covered in EU legislation governing the digital economy and media sectors. But now, the focus is changing, and enforcement by national authorities is becoming key. This of course is creating institutional waves in some Member States, but what’s sure is that cooperation between authorities and also between EU Member States and with other regions of the world is needed, while also not forgetting that start-ups need sandboxes and flexibility to build nice strong sandcastles!
Looking to the future, what other areas of media or platform regulation should be considered at the European level?
I’m intimately convinced that more should be done to protect minors online. There is so much damaging content that children should not be able to access. This is certainly something we should address in a more comprehensive manner at the EU level. But let’s see…
I’m also interested in the proposed EU regulation on political advertising and how it will be amended by the Parliament and the Council. It’s quite a clever initiative in the sense that it has a very broad scope of application but some are saying that it should go further to ban certain practices.
Discoverability, findability, and prominence of public interest content is also close to my heart and, although I’m not sure how this can be achieved, I’ve seen some initiatives on this at the national level so it will be interesting to see how this will work in practice. I could go on and on, but I’ll stop here!
Thank you very much for your time and input Michèle. We’re looking forward to discovering the outputs of your new project in a few months.
