The proposal
The Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung's Media Programme Sub-Saharan Africa has published A South African Legal Framework to Govern Online Harm: What Might We Learn from the EU's Digital Services Act?, by Nicole Fritz and Justine Limpitlaw. The KAS page lists the study as published on 5 October 2026 and says it was launched on 15 October at the Media Freedom Festival in Johannesburg. The authors argue that South Africa should adapt the DSA's core principles to its own constitutional, institutional and economic conditions, not import the regulation whole.
The framework rests on four pillars: transparency, user rights, independent oversight and effective enforcement. On transparency, users should be able to understand how platforms moderate content, show advertising and recommend information. Regulators and qualified independent researchers would get access to relevant platform data. Users would get explanations of moderation decisions, complaint procedures and meaningful appeals. The study also suggests local legal representation for major international platforms, with ICASA as the lead regulator, and a "Safety by Design" approach for children.
The strongest case for acting
The case for a statute is real. South Africa has laws that touch parts of online harm, but the study finds they do not add up to a coherent system of platform accountability. Today a South African whose post is removed, or who is targeted by coordinated abuse, depends on each company's voluntary rules and on whether it chooses to answer. Researchers and regulators cannot independently check what platforms say about their own systems. In the meantime the Competition Commission's Media and Digital Platforms Market Inquiry, whose materials are on the Commission's inquiry page, has already treated the subject seriously. The page lists a working paper, Reviewing South Africa's Content Moderation for Social Media Platforms, that includes an "Online Integrity Ombudsman Model". Competition law is a poor tool for speech governance, so a dedicated framework has some merit.
Why the transparency core is the right import
The DSA's most exportable idea is procedural: say what you do, and let others check. The European Commission's DSA overview says platforms must be open about content moderation, that ads must be labelled so users can see who placed them and why they are being shown them, and that the largest platforms must keep ad information in a public repository. A user whose content is removed or suspended must be told why and can appeal, either through the platform or an out-of-court dispute settlement body.
These are the rules a pro-speech regulator should want. A person who gets an explanation and an appeal can contest an error. A researcher with data access can show whether a recommender system amplifies harm, without anyone relying on a company's press release. None of this tells platforms which lawful speech to remove. The study is aware of the risk: it stresses freedom of expression and warns against rules that push platforms into over-removal.
Where the risk lies
Three design choices will decide whether a South African law helps or harms.
- Proportionality in practice. The DSA reserves its heaviest obligations for the largest services, defined as those with more than 45 million monthly EU users, per the Commission. South Africa has about 60 million people in total, so a user-count threshold copied from Brussels would catch almost nothing, and one set too low would put compliance costs on local startups that lack the legal teams of global firms. The study's size-and-influence scaling is the right idea, but the number has to be chosen with local evidence.
- Systemic-risk duties. The study would have the largest platforms assess and mitigate risks including disinformation, election interference and hate speech. Of the four pillars, this is where the most discretion sits. Vague duties about "disinformation" invite regulators to pressure companies over lawful but unwelcome speech. Risk assessments should be disclosed and open to outside scrutiny, but regulators should not be able to dictate which content outcomes count as compliance.
- Penalties and capacity. The Commission's DSA enforcement page says fines "shall in no case exceed 6%" of a provider's global annual turnover. The study calls for funding, investigative powers and meaningful penalties. But an under-resourced ICASA given a broad mandate and large fines is the worst combination: slow, selective enforcement against whoever is easiest to reach. Regulator independence and judicial review need to be written into the statute from the start.
Sequencing matters
The study sits alongside the Competition Commission's inquiry. Legal commentary on the inquiry's final report describes enforceable remedies for Meta, TikTok, Microsoft, X and OpenAI, and a negotiated, enforceable funding package with Google. With remedies still being implemented, Parliament has an opportunity to avoid duplicating or contradicting them. A sensible order would legislate the transparency and appeals layer first, since it is the least contested and the easiest to measure. After a period of evidence-gathering using the new data access, it could consider whether any systemic-risk obligations are justified.
Bottom line
The KAS study is a useful, serious contribution, and its transparency, data-access and appeals recommendations deserve a hearing in Parliament. A South African law should require platforms to explain themselves, open their systems to qualified scrutiny and give users a way to contest decisions. It should be wary of anything that makes the state a referee of what lawful speech counts as harmful. The test for the bill will be whether it is built around process and accountability, with thresholds and penalties scaled to what South Africa can actually enforce.