Digital distraction and self-control tools: a consumer law perspective

Description

From a consumer law perspective, digital self-control tools are useful, but they cannot replace the law. We need a smart mix of hard and soft law and self-control tools.
The most harmful types of digital distraction should be outright prohibited and subject to severe sanctions to balance enforcement limitations. The UCPD and the DSA already address this need, but they can still be refined.
A new legal framework is needed to combat less harmful forms of digital distraction through self-control tools. Obligations should be imposed on digital service providers (1) to design their services in a way that consumers can control how information is presented to them and (2) to make free self-control tools available for their services in ways that are easy to find and deploy by consumers, or even to activate them by default.
These rules do not necessarily need to be fully fleshed out in ‘hard’ legislation. Legislation can be accompanied by soft law guidelines drafted by the European Commission, as well as standards and codes of conduct, in line with articles 44 et seq. of the DSA.
Finally, enforcement remains a point of attention and should not only focus on the harms digital distraction tools intend to prevent, but also carefully scrutinize if those tools themselves do not function and are not presented in ways that are aggressive, misleading, or otherwise unfair.

Period	2 Oct 2025
Event title	Law and Digital Distraction
Event type	Seminar
Location	Maastricht, NetherlandsShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International