Digital Services Act

The Digital Services Act covers intermediary services offered to users in the EU, wherever the provider is based. Duties grow with the type of service, and the largest carry the most.

How designation works

An online platform or search engine with at least 45 million average monthly active recipients (users) in the EU becomes a very large online platform (VLOP) or very large online search engine (VLOSE) only when the European Commission adopts a designation decision. The duties apply four months after the provider is notified. After a full year below the threshold, the Commission must end the designation.

What a designated service must do

• Assess its systemic risks yearly, and before launching a feature likely to have a critical impact on them. Listed risks range from illegal content to harm to fundamental rights, elections and minors. It must consider how recommender systems, which choose what users see, other algorithms, and deliberate manipulation such as automated exploitation affect those risks.
• Mitigate them. Listed options include testing algorithmic systems and prominently marking generated or manipulated media that resemble real people or events and falsely appear authentic.
• Be audited independently every year, at its own expense.

The Commission alone supervises these duties. For an intentional or negligent breach it can fine up to 6 % of the previous year’s worldwide turnover.

Why it matters for AI

Under the EU AI Act as amended by the Digital Omnibus on AI, the AI Office supervises and enforces the AI Act for providers of AI that is, or is built into, a designated VLOP or VLOSE. An Omnibus recital calls the DSA risk assessment, mitigation and audit “the first point of entry” for assessing that AI, while keeping the AI Office’s powers to investigate and enforce non-compliance after the fact.

Questions and answers

What is a very large online platform under the DSA?

A very large online platform (VLOP) is an online platform with at least 45 million average monthly active recipients in the EU that the European Commission has designated by decision under Article 33 of the Digital Services Act. Its extra duties start four months after the Commission notifies the provider.

Does the Digital Services Act apply to AI chatbots?

The Digital Services Act applies to intermediary services, not to AI as such. A recital of the EU AI Act says AI systems may be provided as intermediary services or parts of them. Its example is a chatbot that searches, in principle, all websites and merges what it finds into one answer, which may provide an online search engine.

How big is the fine under the Digital Services Act?

For a very large online platform or search engine, the European Commission can fine up to 6 % of the provider's total worldwide annual turnover in the preceding financial year, under Article 74 of the Digital Services Act.