The text, which will come into force in September 2023, aims in particular to impose greater transparency on social networks like TikTok, and to fight against illegal content.
European Commission employees are now banned from using the Chinese app TikTok. The institution justifies its decision by “data protection issues” and describes the social network as “a threat to its cybersecurity”, Tiktok being suspected of allowing the Chinese government to access the data of its users. But it is also a strong message sent to the Chinese social network, in a standoff, one of the challenges of which is the compliance of the application with the Digital services act (DSA), which will come into force in September 2023.
“A younger audience breeds greater responsibility”, already warned the European commissioner for the internal market Thierry Breton at the end of January, after a videoconference with Shou Zi Chew, the CEO of TikTok. “We will not hesitate to adopt the full range of sanctions to protect our citizens if audits do not show full compliance.”he threatened before claiming “not just efforts but results”.
With younger audiences comes greater responsibility.
As a platform reaching millions of young Europeans, #TikTok has to fully comply with EU law, notably the #DSA.
I asked TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew to demonstrate, as soon as possible, not only efforts but results. pic.twitter.com/3B8yGaIQp2
— Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton) January 19, 2023
The DSA, published last October, aims to establish “harmonised rules for a safe, predictable and reliable online environment”, mainly in terms of moderation of illegal content and transparency of the service. It is the second part of a legislative package which also contains a Digital Markets Regulation (DMA), which for its part tackles anti-competitive online commercial practices.
What does the DSA contain?
The text requires platforms to remove content that violates national and European standards (homophobic, racist, pornographic, illegal products, etc.) and to suspend users who publish this content. It expressly asks the sites to acquire human and technical resources to moderate their publications more efficiently and more quickly.
A reporting link must also be made available to the user. And the social network will not only have to process the request but also inform the author of the report of the status of the procedure.
In addition, the DSA obliges web giants to make significant progress in terms of transparency: they must publish regular reports on the moderation of their content, as well as information “on the policies, procedures, measures and tools used for content moderation purposes, including algorithm-based decision-making”. In addition, the text will allow European authorities to require access to these algorithms.
It prohibits the use of certain personal information, such as sexuality or political orientation, for advertising purposes, and attacks “dark patterns”, these untimely alerts which push the user to modify the settings of his account to continue browsing or watching.
Finally, online sales platforms like Amazon will have to better control the identity of their suppliers in order to better inform buyers and fight against counterfeiting.
Who is targeted by the text?
The DSA will apply to all online intermediaries, whether they offer goods, content or services, on the European market and regardless of the origin of the platform.
This therefore concerns access providers, online sales platforms, social networks, application stores such as App store or Google Play, etc.
The obligations prescribed by the DSA are proportional to the nature of the services offered, but also to the risks they entail and to the size of the platforms: this nuance therefore targets GAFAMs in particular (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft), by imposing stricter rules on them than on their more modest competitors.
What control and what sanctions?
An independent authority “digital services coordinator” will be designated or set up in each Member State to ensure compliance with this new regulation by online intermediaries. In France, Arcom will be in charge. These 27 coordinators will cooperate with each other in order to carry out joint investigations and harmonize the control and application of the text.
The European Commission will itself monitor the very large platforms and very large search engines (more than 45 million monthly users, 10 million annual turnover and 50 employees), which will finance this monitoring themselves through “monitoring fees”.
In the event of non-compliance with the DSA, the coordinators and the Commission will sanction these digital players. For very large platforms and very large search engines, the Commission will be able to impose fines of up to 6% of their worldwide turnover. In the event of serious and repeated violations of the regulation, the platforms may even be banned from operating on the European market.