With the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market of 17 April 2019 (“DSM Directive” or “DSMD”), the EU has adopted an ambitious legislative package which EU Member States must transpose into national law by 7 June 2021. One of the central – and most controversial provisions of the new legislation is Article 17 DSMD. This provision has the potential to bring about a climate change in the regulation of online platforms that host user-generated content (“UGC”). More specifically, it entails a remarkable departure from traditional notice-and-takedown liability shields that reflect a presumption of non-infringement. Article 17 DSMD sets forth content moderation obligations that are likely to culminate in the employment of upfront content filtering tools to ensure that unauthorized protected content does not populate online content-sharing platforms. Instead of presuming that uploaded content does not amount to infringement unless copyright owners take action and provide proof, the default position of filtering systems is that every upload is suspicious and that copyright owners are entitled to ex ante control over the sharing of information online.