The Digital Services Act can potentially become a tool for change toward a more rights-abiding, competitive European digital platform ecosystem. However, as it currently stands, it is prone to be misused as a powerful tool for censorship as well as a tool to displace human rights as the backbone of the rule of law in modern democracies. Its risk-based and “new governance” approach to regulation puts rights on the back burner, and, while paying lip service to them, takes them off the center stage. This is problematic, for the incentives of the regulation and the oversight and enforcement mechanisms it establishes may channel the violation of fundamental rights. This paper proposes ways to correct this in the incipient enforcement and interpretative stage of the statute. In particular, we propose to adopt a working definition for “systemic risks”, clarify and narrow the individual risks identified, interpret them in light of human rights standards; take the proportionality principle seriously and refine oversight; allow room for transparency and accountability for the oversight mechanisms, and bring back the State as a potential source of risks to human rights and other paramount values the DSA seeks to protect.