Self-determination through explanation: an ethical perspective on the implementation of the transparency requirements for recommender systems set by the Digital Services Act of the European Union

In the contemporary information age, recommender systems (RSs) play a critical role in influencing online behaviour: from social media to e-commerce, from music streaming to news aggregators, individuals are constantly targeted by personalized recommendations suggesting contents that may interest them. Despite such diffusion, the extent to which recommendations influence users' decisions is still underexplored, given that independent audits on the structure and functioning of RSs deployed on online platforms are usually prevented by proprietary constraints. The nudging potential of RSs can represent a risk for vulnerable people: indeed, judicial cases involving platforms' responsibility for displaying recommendations that may lead to political radicalization or endangerment of minors have recently caught public attention. The Digital Services Act of the European Union (DSA) is the first supranational regulation that sets specific transparency and auditing requirements for RSs implemented by online platforms with the aim of enhancing users' self-determination: in particular, it allows users to modify the parameters on which recommendations rely so to let them choose autonomously which kind of content they want to see. This research focuses on whether and how the enforcement of this regulation can mitigate the unfair consequences of the power imbalance between online platforms and users. To this aim, I discuss the harms arising from digital nudging based on RSs and propose explanations as a tool that can reduce the impact of those harms by increasing users' awareness. Through a comparative analysis of relevant articles of the DSA, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the AI Act, I outline how the provisions of the DSA fill some of the gaps left by other relevant European regulations, while leaving the so-called right to explanation substantially unaddressed. As a result of this analysis, I argue that, in order for the implementation of the DSA provisions on recommender systems to be effective, policy-makers should: 1) enhance users' awareness through clear and easily accessible explanations on how the recommendation process works and how they can be influenced by it; 2) grant users the possibility of intervening directly on the strategies through which RSs target them on the platform's interface.