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For the purposes of this article, tinkering is understood as the technical possibility, or the right, to understand, discuss, repair and modify a technological device. In the perspective of an individual user, a right to tinker with the recommender system of an online platform can be understood as a tool to overcome the limits in the GDPR’s lack of a right to explanation. Nevertheless, the new Digital Services Act has a limited approach to this right. While it enables the user to acquire more information on the algorithm, for example on the parameters and the ranking criteria, it does not provide for a right to intervene directly on such criteria. On the other hand, recent secondary regulations issued by the Cyberspace Administration of China show the promises and perils of a more wide-ranging right to tinker. Here, users of platform services are provided a broad degree of freedom to tinker. This, however, far from empowering users with a right to self-determination, exists in a digital environment that the law requires to be manipulative.

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Freedom to Tinker with Algorithmic Recommender Systems, a Faustian Bargain in the Current European Context and Some Chinese Insights

  • 会议论文

  • 出版模式：

    开放获取

  • 发表日期：

    2025年

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  • Giulio Santoni

摘要

For the purposes of this article, tinkering is understood as the technical possibility, or the right, to understand, discuss, repair and modify a technological device. In the perspective of an individual user, a right to tinker with the recommender system of an online platform can be understood as a tool to overcome the limits in the GDPR’s lack of a right to explanation. Nevertheless, the new Digital Services Act has a limited approach to this right. While it enables the user to acquire more information on the algorithm, for example on the parameters and the ranking criteria, it does not provide for a right to intervene directly on such criteria. On the other hand, recent secondary regulations issued by the Cyberspace Administration of China show the promises and perils of a more wide-ranging right to tinker. Here, users of platform services are provided a broad degree of freedom to tinker. This, however, far from empowering users with a right to self-determination, exists in a digital environment that the law requires to be manipulative.