Brave New Data Access World: What the Digital Services Act (DSA) Means for Researcher Access to Digital Platforms

by Dr Jakob Ohme (Weizenbaum-Institut)

Friday 7 Nov 2025, 14:00 → 15:30 Europe/Berlin

online

The European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) marks a turning point for the study of digital platforms by establishing a legal framework for researcher access to platform data, including from major social media companies. Article 40 of the DSA outlines how researchers can request such access, opening unprecedented possibilities for empirical investigations into the digital public sphere.

Yet, the practical implementation of this right to data access raises important challenges. Questions of eligibility, the scope of accessible data, and the ethical and technical standards required for secure processing are central to understanding what this new regime will mean in practice.
This talk provides an overview of the DSA’s data-access provisions, explains their relevance for the research community, and discusses what opportunities—and limitations—emerge for studying systemic risks, algorithmic effects, and platform governance. It reflects on early experiences with Article 40 implementation and considers what it will take to build a sustainable infrastructure for independent, policy-relevant research on digital platforms in Europe.

Speaker

Dr. Jakob Ohme leads the interdisciplinary "Digital News Dynamics" research group at the Weizenbaum Institute in Berlin, exploring the impact and dissemination of professional journalism on digital platforms versus other sources like influencers or AI. His work emphasizes the changes digital and mobile communications bring to news consumption and political engagement, particularly across different generations. Jakob Ohme is dedicated to advancing digital methodologies in political communication and journalism research, notably through the innovative use of digital trace data. He's also a Co-Principal Investigator in the #DSA40 Collaboratory, focusing on collaborative access to platform data under the EU's Digital Services Act.