Abstract

The emergence of the metaverse, propelled by immersive technologies and enriched realities, facilitated through specialized hardware and augmented by artificial intelligence and blockchain innovations, heralds a transformative paradigm comparable in magnitude to the advent of the modern-day internet. It offers unprecedented opportunities in entertainment, education, social interaction, and commerce. However, this evolution introduces complex regulatory challenges, particularly in the field of content moderation, where the traditional legal doctrines require significant reinterpretation in light of novel virtual environments. This article argues that the regulatory architecture, especially as redefined under the EU’s Digital Services Act, must be further adapted to provide both legal clarity and operational efficacy. Specifically, it proposes a nuanced redefinition of the concept of “hosting”, by aligning it with its technical meaning-namely, a service rendered by data centers for remuneration-and limiting the term “online platform” to those services that, relying on such hosting infrastructure, enable the upload and dissemination of user-generated content. This distinction not only addresses prevailing ambiguities in the regulatory landscape, but also facilitates a differentiated allocation of responsibilities, whereby traditional hosting providers are subject to fewer duties of care, while online platforms bear a heightened obligation to moderate unlawful content. Furthermore, such a reconceptualization opens the path toward a layered architecture of content moderation, wherein hosting providers could offer shared filtration tools, compliant with jurisprudential standards such as those articulated in Netlog and Scarlet, while online platforms focus on the second-tier moderation of curated content. This approach could foster more efficient and scalable responses to illegal content and clarify procedural questions, particularly with respect to the recipient and executor of notices, assigning the online platform a primary role, while entrusting hosting services with foundational technical functions subject to robust procedural safeguards.