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https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.01122
CONCLUSION: REFLECTIONS ON DSA DATA ACCESS FOR THE RESEARCH COMMUNITY
The implementation of DSA Article 40 is a significant milestone in the pursuit of greater platform transparency and
accountability. By granting vetted researchers access to data, this mechanism has great potential to uncover systemic
risks and to foster a more informed regulatory landscape. However, our analysis reveals critical legal interpretational
and operational challenges that hinder the realisation of this potential, due to how bureaucratic and cumbersome Article
40 will prove to be in practice. Not only are systemic risks very vague to define and identify, but requesting data can
lead to a standoff problem between platforms and researchers. In the information asymmetry defining digital industries
such as social media, not having a general overview of the data availability might hurt researchers’ chances of gettin
Topic Author
