The EU's DSA goes into effect, forcing platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok to let users opt out of profiling-based content recommendations
Internet users in the European Union are logging on to a quiet revolution on mainstream social networks today: The ability to say ‘no thanks’ to being attention hacked by AI.
TechCrunchNatasha Lomas
Context & Ripple Effects
The DSA had already established a broader framework requiring large platforms to provide algorithmic transparency and address misinformation in crises. This enforcement step converts that framework into a concrete user control over how content is selected.
Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok must provide EU users a way to avoid recommendations based on profiling, giving users a non-profiled alternative to the default discovery experience.
Platforms must support and clearly present a recommendation mode that operates without the user-profiling logic used in their personalized feeds.
Second-order effects
Product, policy, and engineering teams must treat recommendation controls as a regulated feature, not merely an optional privacy setting; comparable large platforms face the same EU baseline.
Where users choose the alternative mode, platforms and creators may need to assess how less-personalized distribution changes content discovery and engagement patterns.
Third-order effects
The DSA’s earlier emphasis on algorithmic transparency and crisis-response obligations is becoming a model of user-controllable platform governance: regulators can require choice over ranking systems, not just disclosure about them.
If this approach proves enforceable, recommendation interfaces may increasingly be designed around auditable choices and regional compliance defaults, rather than a single opaque personalized feed.
The trend: Platform regulation is shifting from policing harmful content alone toward giving users meaningful control over the algorithms that shape their attention.
The EU DSA wasn't inevitable. It was a response to failures by these companies to prevent harm from their recommender algorithms. Executives incentives can cause execs to trivialize regulatory risk because compensation rewards short-term optimization. The long-term costs can b…
Today, the Digital Services Act — #DSA — becomes legally enforceable for Very Large Online Platforms & Search Engines. These systemic platforms play a very important role in our daily lives — so it was time for the EU to set our own rules. A safer Internet for everyone 🇪🇺 [video]
[Translated from Dutch] Conspiracy theorists already predicted this 7, 8 years ago, when we ‘jokingly’ called the EU the EUSSR. Were we right or not? DDR level censorship became law today, surrounded by the usual newspeak for totalitarian regimes.
The EU has turned into an authoritarian super state that censors European citizens online I see less and less reasons to remain part of the EU We've lost Sovereignty of our borders. NGOs and the EU control Ireland. Many indigenous industries are destroyed #ResignHelen
I wonder how many social media posts by the EU would fall foul of this legislation? Though they've probably got a clause in it somewhere that exempts their utterances from ever being classed as “misinformation”
The EU has none of the world leading tech companies, but all of the worst tech legislation. It's not exactly a coincidence. Europe is destined to be a historical vacation destination with nice food and pretty architecture. Nothing new comes from there anymore.
Important change in the European digital landscape with new rules in place to make online platforms safer for all of us, incl. children. Our teams are forward to analysing the platforms' own risk assessments...
[Translated from French] 🤡 When we are not able to assume the contradiction, different approaches and opinions, when we are not even able to implement a French or European search engine, what do we do? We remove television channels and censor social networks 🤡
Starting today, the European Commission will start putting massive fines on social media companies which don't remove misinformation and hate speech from their platforms.
This DSA does not make the internet “safer for everyone” The European Union made these rules because they can't innovate to save their sorry lives and decided targeting American tech firms was easier. This is a censorious law, and it should be soundly condemned.
💻Today the #DigitalServicesAct becomes legally enforceable for very large online platforms & search engines. #DSA will make the digital world🌍a better place by: 1⃣Making it easier to report dangerous goods & illegal content 2⃣Helping to tackle cyber bullying [image]
We're bringing our European values into the digital world. With strict rules on transparency and accountability, our Digital Services Act aims to protect our children, societies and democracies. As of today, very large online platforms must apply the new law.
In the EU, the Censorship DSA Digital Services Act is implemented as of today, August 25 2023. Exactly at 8am, a big Dutch Telegram Channel appears to have been shut down. I am curious to see what will happen here on X fka Twitter as of today. [image]
Here, for example, are some of the changes TikTok is bringing in as a result of the EU's new DSA laws. (It's not immediately clear whether these will apply to UK users or not.) https://newsroom.tiktok.com/ ... [image]
📣 New EU law brings us the ultimate freedom! Say goodbye to AI algorithms and hello to a chronological news feed. No more forced cat videos! Check out this post by Natasha Lomas on TechCrunch to learn more: https://techcrunch.com/... #SocialMediaRevolution