The opinion has been prepared by the two interdisciplinary research projects DIGITs EU and TWON and the Digital Law Institute (IRDT) of the Trier University (Germany).

‘Digital Sovereignty of Europe’ (DigitS EU) is an interdisciplinary research project of Trier Uni-versity, funded by the research initiative Rheinland-Pfalz 2024-2028. It aims to accompany the implementation of the EU’s new digital legal order. The interdisciplinary research network draws on a wide range of expertise from the fields of law, political science and media science as well as computa-tional linguistics, business administration and sinology.

The project ‘Twin of Online Social Networks’ (TWON) is a Horizon Europe project that develops methods to study the impact of platform mechanics on the quality of public debate. We are develop-ing a so-called digital twin to create a simulation of online social networks and to study such effects. However, to calibrate such a digital twin and to verify conclusions, access to platform data is of par-amount importance.