A democratic alternative to the Digital Services Act's handshake between States and online platforms to tackle disinformation

The European Union is currently discussing at a surprisingly, very quick speed the legal framework for this issue through the Digital Services Act (the DSA,. The purpose of this contribution is to explore how misinformation and other categories of questionable content are tackled in the DSA and to highlight the option taken in the DSA to transfer government-like powers (of censorship) to the private sector. A more democratic alternative is sketched. A first one is based on the distinction between manifestly illegal content and merely illegal content to distribute better the workload between private and public enforcement of norms. A second alternative consists in community-based content moderation as an alternative or complementary strategy next to platform-based content moderation