You might not immediately notice it, but the world changes today. You could be forgiven for missing it: the developments are buried deep in the decision trees of your social media app menus, tucked several clicks and taps away from easy access in a thicket of terms and conditions text.
The Digital Services Act (DSA), Europe’s sweeping attempt to regulate big tech that was passed in October 2022, comes into force for more than a dozen of the biggest tech companies today. The new laws set clear rules on content moderation, user privacy and transparency that online platforms must now follow.
Any digital platform with more than 45 million users in the European Union – or a 10th of the total population – will have to comply with the new rules, or face fines of up to 6% of their revenue. Nineteen companies, including Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok, will all have to conform to the DSA’s new standards. So financially punitive are the fines that repeat offenders, the EU says, could run the risk of no longer being able to operate in Europe.
Today, these changes are barely perceptible, but as regulators, governments and academics start to explore the wealth of data they now have access to, the influence of the DSA will no doubt be felt in years to come. In a world where the leaders of tech companies often feel and act as if they are bigger than many countries’ elected leaders, the DSA is a triumph. And it is an example that we in the UK should be following.
You only need look at the raft of announcements in the past week designed to align big tech firms with the incoming rules to see how these giants are being brought to heel. Google is providing more information to users about how ad targeting works. Meta is opening up its platforms to researchers, winding back years of increasing secrecy. TikTok is giving users the option to use what amounts to an essentially neutered, algorithm-free version of its app, all because it has to under the Digital Services Act.
Are these world-changing updates? No. Will the tech companies’ announcements be carefully crafted to suggest they are bending more than they actually are? Undoubtedly. But nonetheless, these changes are meaningful – a show of tangible action to tackle the biggest issues facing tech users.
Europe can be full of technocrats. And yes, European institutions have a tendency to take themselves too seriously. But the reality is that boring, obsessive analysis gets the job done. Europe has proposed, passed and enacted several digital safety laws, including the one that comes into force today, in the time we’ve spent assembling a Frankenstein’s monster of an online safety bill, which leaves much to be desired.
The fact that two of the 19 companies that will be affected by the new laws – Amazon and German fashion retailer Zalando – are challenging their inclusion, suggests quite how big a deal the DSA is. That five of the biggest tech companies, Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok and Snapchat, flunked pre-implementation stress tests by the EU and were told to go away and fix things, suggests that the bloc won’t mess about in compelling companies to adhere.
Little wonder, then, that a number of big names in the tech world have conveniently reported user numbers below the 45 million threshold. European regulators have said they are looking at five companies they think ought to be included.
Signs of the DSA’s early success have already surfaced in the slew of changes that companies are making to their key platforms and apps in advance of the change. But the more meaningful test will be whether the DSA, as drafted, can get on top of all of the damaging practices that big tech companies have developed over 20 years of laissez-faire regulation.
We won’t know that for a while yet. It is likely the biggest changes triggered by these new regulations will be felt in small, incremental updates, rather than sweeping transformation. But rather than harping on about stereotypical European bureaucracy, British politicians would do well to look in the mirror. We can learn from the DSA. And we should.
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Chris Stokel-Walker is a UK journalist based in Newcastle. He is the author of TikTok Boom: China’s Dynamite App and the Superpower Race for Social Media