From self to co-regulation in the EU’s approach to disinformation: How Big Tech’s preemptive cooperation shapes interest group lobbying coalitions

The emergence of social media platforms during the last decade has opened a wide political and regulatory debate about the role that these companies play in the public sphere, and democracy more broadly. In this paper, we analyse one aspect of the emerging regulatory debate, focused on disinformation. We seek to problematise emerging research that has pointed out that after emerging in response to external threats, the DSA and other regulations have used regulatory power to curb the influence of Big Tech in the EU. We do so by analysing the role of actors’ coalitions that have emerged to channel specific demands and pressures in relation to the ongoing regulatory struggle. Specifically, we use field theory and network analysis to trace the cooperation and competition relations and relations among the actors involved in the digital ‘policy mix’ regulations put forward during the von der Leyen Commission (2019-24). We argue that the DSA/DMA may not have been the preferred regulatory options of Big Tech, but the package consolidates market regulation and sidelines critical discourses that may challenge the platforms’ business model. In doing so, very large platforms have been recognised as key players in the increasingly autonomous field of practice of digital governance. We argue that the success of Big Tech platforms is based on their preemptive cooperation, whereby they skilfully navigated the field of Eurocracy and became ‘co-regulators’.