Trust as a topos of platform regulation

This article provides an introduction to the topic of “trust as a topos of platform regulation”. In a first step, the general relationship between the social fact of “trust” and the law is described as one of complementary, reciprocal reinforcement of effects. With regard to the trust-promoting role of the law, a second step distinguishes between the function of trust or trustworthiness as an element of a regulation and the legal consequences linked to it. Based on these foundations, the article then provides an overview of references to “trust” in German and European platform regulation since 2015, including sectoral regulations against hate crime and disinformation as well as for the protection of copyright, which led to the horizontal Digital Services Act in 2022, which is intended to ensure an overall “trustworthy online environment”. Fourthly, the article presents an abstract-analytical concept of trust, which is well suited to analyzing the listed trust relationships and their legal regulations. A concluding outlook interprets the proliferation of the trust topos as an expression of a crisis of trust in the digital age. The desired trustworthiness of the online environment forms a normative minimum that is to be achieved through legal obligations of conduct and privileges for trustworthy actors in civil society. Whether this is successful and desirable at all is, of course, an open question. The legal debate on the topos of trust in digital and platform regulation has only just begun.