The Watchdogs Network: A model for continuous monitoring of AVMSD rules

Abstract

The Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) overhaul in 2018 includes video sharing platform services (VSPs), which provide content in an automated way, including user-generated content (UGC). This change is tantamount to a paradigm shift, as these multi-sided platforms differ starkly from the actors that had previously been regulated under the AVMSD. The AVMSD seems to have answered the question, what kind of rules we need. However, problems of implementation and application will not become apparent until later, and only then will it become clear which of the VSPs’ measures are truly expedient and appropriate. To know which rules are precise enough to provide legal certainty while also dynamic enough to adapt to technological developments, we need permanent monitoring processes – as described in our governance cycle. The prerequisite for permanent monitoring processes is fair and transparent data accesses, the design of which is also a fundamental challenge, as we will explain by the house of data access. Continuous monitoring processes are complex procedures involving many layers of competence. But they are also opportunities to timely catch and quickly correct misdevelopments. By implementing the two-step watchdog model in a bigger network, undesirable developments can be recognized at an earlier stage, because watchdogs are strengthened as information purveyors.