Funded by the German Federal Foreign Office, the Digital Policy Lab (DPL) is an intergovernmental working group focused on charting the regulatory and policy path forward to prevent and counter disinformation, hate speech, extremism and terrorism online.

It comprises a core group of senior representatives of ministries and regulators from key liberal democratic countries. The DPL intends to foster intergovernmental exchange, provide policymakers with access to sector-leading expertise and research, and build an international community of policy practice around key regulatory challenges in the digital policy space.

Since launching in November 2020, regular sessions, working groups and information exchanges have brought together officials from 13 countries and the EU. Currently, the DPL includes representation from government agencies from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland, Sweden, Slovakia, the United Kingdom, the United States and the EU Commission.

In the autumn of 2022, the Digital Policy Lab is focusing on implementing platform data access for public interest research in practice, through a series of sessions and a multistakeholder working group. For researchers to gain a deeper understanding of how the information environment works, and assess risks and private sector mitigations, they require meaningful and comprehensive data access. Such access should be the foundation of any regulatory and non-regulatory interventions that address the societal risks posed by platforms.

All DPL sessions are accompanied by the Policy Digest newsletter, which provides general updates on recent digital policy developments in DPL member countries, including regulatory and non-regulatory initiatives aiming to combat online harms such as disinformation, hate speech, extremist or terrorist content. In addition to general updates, each Policy Digest provides a snapshot of topic-specific schemes relevant to the upcoming DPL session. All Policy Digests are available here.

Past DPL discussions:
The DPL discussions build on the previous sessions over the years, keeping in step with digital policy developments. In 2020 and 2021, the DPL focussed on developing frameworks for transparency in digital regulation, and reviewing specific legislative proposals, such as the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), the UK Online Safety Bill, and German and French approaches to regulating online harms, as well as non-regulatory proposals such as the European Democracy Action Plan (EDAP). These events were accompanied by a series of policy briefs, which are available to download in English and German.

In early 2022, DPL discussions explored risk-based digital policy responses and discussed instruments for formulating, designing and conducting risk assessment of online platforms. Due to the unprecedented nature of the risk-based approach outlined in the EU’s Digital Services Act, these discussions drew on European examples but always with the aim of informing policy discussions and proposals in other contexts.

Special DPL sessions allow the Lab to discuss new and developing issues facing the digital policy landscape. Following the elections in several DPL countries, in 2021 a special session focused on the range of harms impacting the integrity of elections, providing an overview of the complex threat environment, from extremism, targeted harassment of politicians and election workers, to disinformation and conspiracy theories. Following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, a special session reflected on platform responses to information manipulation regarding the invasion of Ukraine.

The work of the Digital Policy Lab replaces the Policy Planners Network on Countering Radicalisation and Extremism (PPN) that ISD ran from 2008 – 2019, in which time we delivered 24 international events. The PPN worked to upgrade and coordinate the strategies of its 12 governmental members through sharing of information and best practice for designing and implementing policies in countering extremism.