Die Moderation rechtmäßiger Inhalte auf Kommunikationsplattformen

Communication platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube have become central arenas of public opinion formation. Their operators moderate millions of items of user-generated content every day on the basis of privately drafted terms of service, removing not only unlawful but also lawful content protected by fundamental rights. Jonas Hiller examines under which conditions and to what extent such moderation is permissible.
The legal framework is provided by the Digital Services Act (DSA), in force since 2024, whose moderation-related due diligence obligations are first systematically analyzed. Building on this, the author develops standards for reviewing both the exercise and the substantive content of privately autonomous moderation decisions, as well as their effects under private law. He also examines the scope for national regulation that remains under the fully harmonizing DSA.
The study demonstrates that the DSA leads to a constitutionalization of the platform user agreement without entirely eliminating private autonomy. In their moderation practices, platform operators become bound by fundamental rights and rule-of-law principles. While they retain broad discretion in designing their terms of service, the application and enforcement of those terms in individual cases are subject to stricter scrutiny. Key criteria for this graduated intensity of review are market power, user dependency, and a platform's function as a public forum.
The study also critically assesses the DSA's fully harmonizing effect, arguing that the regulation of the digital public sphere touches upon the cultural sovereignty and democratic identity of the Member States. Rather than preserving national regulatory discretion, the fully harmonizing nature of EU law results in a Europeanization of freedom of expression in the digital sphere.