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Constitutional Accountability in the Platform Age: A Three-Dimensional Framework for Algorithmic Governance

Nicola Lucchi

7 May 2026

Algorithmic governance increasingly shapes how information circulates, how norms are enforced, and how democratic decisions are made. Yet constitutional theory lacks the tools to conceptualize accountability in this new environment, where private digital platforms exercise public-like powers with limited oversight. This Article develops a new framework for digital constitutional accountability, structured around three dimensions: epistemic (who controls knowledge and visibility), normative (who sets and enforces behavioral standards), and systemic (which institutions ensure constitutional review and democratic legitimacy). Unlike prior models focused solely on transparency or ethics, this approach integrates comparative jurisprudence, regulatory theory, and institutional design. Through case studies and constitutional decisions from the EU, United States, and United Kingdom, the Article shows how platform power disrupts traditional mechanisms of accountability, and how courts, regulators, and lawmakers are beginning to respond. It concludes by proposing a reform agenda grounded in constitutional law, aimed at reasserting public oversight over privatized digital infrastructures.

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Serra Hunter Professor of Law, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona (Spain). The author wishes to thank Paolo Veronesi, Cesare Mainardi, and Marco Bassini for their generous comments on earlier drafts of this Article. All remaining errors are the author’s
own. The author operationalized this framework as the “Three-Pillar Accountability Test” in Nicola Lucchi, Generative AI and Copyright: Training, Creation, Regulation (Eur. Parl., Pol’y Dep’t for Just., Civ. Liberties & Institutional Affs., PE 774.095, July 2025), § 4.0, tbls. 6, 8 & 21.