The Digital Service Act requires large platforms in Europe to remove illegal content particularly quickly. This should also affect Twitter. A deadline for this has expired.
Like Facebook, Instagram and several Google services, the short message service Twitter is likely to be subject to stricter EU rules against hate speech, terrorist propaganda and counterfeit goods. According to their own statements, they all have a corresponding number of users. The deadline to make this data public under the so-called Digital Services Act (DSA) ended this Friday.
Among other things, the DSA is intended to ensure that platforms remove illegal content on their sites more quickly than before. This affects online marketplaces such as Amazon, social media such as Facebook, platforms for sharing content such as YouTube and search engines such as Google. Large services have to follow more rules than small ones. Particularly strict requirements apply to very large platforms and search engines with more than 45 million active users per month. For example, they have to submit a risk assessment once a year with regard to harmful content and propose countermeasures. They also have to share data with authorities and researchers.
Size matters
Especially with Twitter, it has recently been unclear whether it will be one of the very large platforms. Elon Musk’s company has now made data public, according to which it has had an average of 100.9 million active users per month in the EU over the past 45 days – it should therefore be described as a so-called very large online platform. The same applies to the Meta subsidiaries Facebook and Instagram. The group recently named an average of around 255 million users in the EU per month for Facebook and around 250 million for Instagram.
Among other things, Google presented figures based on user accounts. According to this, the average number of registered users per month for Google Maps (278.6 million), the Play Store (274.6 million), Google Search (332 million), Google Shopping (74.9 million) and YouTube (401 .7 million) above the limit. Apple only announced that only the App Store for the iPhone has more than 45 million users, while other services have fewer users. Nevertheless, the plan is to adapt all app stores to the DSA rules. Ebay also announced that it was below the value.
Next, the EU Commission will now decide which services actually fall under the very large platforms. They then have four months to meet the requirements – otherwise they face penalties. From February 17 next year, the DSA rules will apply to all services covered by the law.
