Annual Report of the Austrian Coordinator for Digital Services 2024
We are pleased to present the first report of the Austrian Communications Authority (KommAustria) under Article 55 of the Digital Services Act (DSA), outlining our work as Austria’s Digital Services Coordinator. KommAustria was designated as the Digital Services Coordinator under Art. 49(1) and (2) DSA, in conjunction with Art. 2 Par. 1 of the Austrian Digital Services Coordinator Act (KDD-G), when the latter entered into force on 17 February 2024 (Federal Law Gazette 182/2023). This legislation significantly expanded our mandate to include oversight of digital platforms – a role that initially began with video-sharing platforms under the 2021 amendment to the Audiovisual Media Services Act (AMD-G).
The DSA marks a new era for the rights of users in the European Union. A clear and highly ambitious goal has been set: the fundamental rights enjoyed in the analogue world must be equally protected in digital space. Whatever is prohibited in the analogue world is equally prohibited in the digital sphere, and vice versa. Rather than introducing new legal provisions for users, the DSA establishes a code of conduct for platforms and, for the first time, enshrines user rights. Platforms are obliged to ensure that users are able to report unlawful content, as well as file complaints to contest any moderator decisions. Users must also be informed of any decision by a platform, including whether to delete or block a given user’s content. Additionally, the DSA introduces sweeping transparency obligations that are progressively more extensive based on platform size. These rules ensure transparency about how platforms handle freedom of expression. As a result of such platform obligations, along with other instruments, the DSA is contributing decisively towards greater freedom of opinion in the digital realm.