The EU platforms rulebook is fully operational and delivering results

Yesterday Meta deployed 27 new real-time visual dashboards in its “CrowdTangle” tool to allow third-party real-time election-monitoring ahead of the European Parliament elections. This step follows the Commission’s opening of formal non-compliance proceedings under the Digital Services Act (DSA) on 30 April which focus, among other issues, on the non-availability of such a tool against the background of Meta's deprecation of CrowdTangle without an adequate replacement.

The Commission had put Meta on notice to communicate which remedial actions it intended to take to alleviate the risks related to such deprecation. And so Meta did. The Commission will monitor the effective roll-out of these functionalities. The formal proceedings against Meta remain open, while the Commission stated that it will continue working with Meta towards more permanent solutions that adress all its concerns as set out in the opening decision.

This is just the latest of many developments which have followed the entry into application of the DSA obligations for the first set of designated very large online platforms and search engines (VLOPSEs) at the end of August last year.

At that time, some thought that DSA compliance would have been simple paperwork: a tick-the-box exercise that would have taken years before any enforcement action was taken. They were wrong.

The EU platforms regulation, the DSA and the Digital Markets Act (DMA), has been skillfully designed by the EU co-legislators together with the Commission to quickly bring concrete results to European citizens and business, who have been at the mercy of platforms too big to care for too long. It does so with clear ex ante rules and an enforcement architecture that ensures vigorous and coordinated action and speed of execution.

The Commission plays a key role in this architecture, as main enforcer for the VLOPSEs and the gatekeepers. And it is fully mobilised to ensure effective enforcement. As of today, 23 VLOPSEs and 7 gatekeepers for 23 core platform services have been designated and the monitoring continues and further designations may follow. At the same time, 8 formal non-compliance cases have been opened under the DSA and 5 under the DMA: these are only the most prominent enforcement actions, and follow months of attentive monitoring and assessment undertaken by the Commission services since the first day the regulatory obligations have enter into force for each platform. A work that will continue with diligence and determination.

Thanks to these actions, change is happening. But for the EU platforms regulation to fully reach its potential and deliver change, all actors must play their role in the enforcement architecture.

Member States must ensure full empowerment and adequate resources to the national authorities with the responsibility of supporting the Commission, in particular the Digital Services Coordinators. These authorities are responsible for ensuring the respect of the DSA by all platforms, irrespective of their size. This is a legal responsibility that the Commission is upholding by initiating infringement proceedings against Member States that have not fulfilled it. The Commission also expects Member States to full cooperate in its investigations, providing evidence of potential breaches of the DSA.

But it is not only for public authorities to ensure monitoring of compliance. An important role is also played by civil society, researchers and academia, business actors and citizens.

That is why the EU platforms regulation, and in particular the DSA, aims to increase transparency, and therefore public scrutiny of the platforms: to increase their accountability. Under the DSA, for example, platforms have to publish an advertisement repository and transparency reports, including unprecedent information on content moderation; they must also inform their users of the reasons behind each moderation decision and make this information available almost in real time in the DSA transparency database; and they need to give access to certain data to researchers to support them in the detection, identification and understanding of systemic risks in the EU, as well as to the assessment of adequacy, efficiency and impacts of their risk mitigation measures; and so on. Under the DMA, gatekeepers have to inform the Commission of any intended merger and acquisition involving core platform services.

The Commission is taking this transparency element very seriously and indeed all its non-compliance cases under the DSA also tackle suspected infringements of the DSA transparency obligations. Because this is essential for the success of the EU platforms regulation. And we are all seeing the first results of this increase transparency: for example, the request for information sent to LinkedIn asking for more details on how it complies with the DSA prohibition of presenting advertisements based on profiling using special categories of personal data was based on a complaint submitted by civil society organisations; studies prepared by civil society and researchers is based on the data published by the platforms under the DSA (for an example see here).

But it is not always easy to speak up and provide evidence, especially for customers, employees or other insiders of the platforms, for fear of retaliation. That is why Commissioner Breton acted swiftly when Apple terminated Epic’s developer account in the crucial moment when the Commission wanted to hear developers’ views on gatekeepers’ compliance plans: there was a risk that they would be silenced. That is also why the Commission has released Whistleblower Tools, both for the DSA and for the DMA: to enable anonymous reporting of harmful practices by VLOPSEs and gatekeeper for those individuals with inside information who want to contribute towards creating a safer digital environment.

While the Commission is still building it, with guidelines, new tools etc., the train of the EU platforms regulation is already running very fast to take EU citizens and businesses towards a safer and fairer online space. Where the DMA creates new business opportunities for smaller competitors and more choice to users, the DSA promises a single set of rules for these platforms to grow and thrive. All this on the condition that the rules are fully respected. And with the help of all stakeholders, the Commission has clearly showed its intention to make sure that this is the case.