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
#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] Matt Rosoff / @mattrosoff : This Dutchman moved to San Francisco a year ago to help tech giants prepare for new EU rules - now they're here: https://www.cnbc.com/... EU Justice / @eu_justice : 💻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] Ursula von der Leyen / @vonderleyen : 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. Timothy Robert / @timingnl : 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] Edwin Hayward / @edwinhayward : 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] @thisguyoftheai : 📣 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 Isaac Kironde / @isaacpkironde : The EU has taken a great step forward when it comes to Data and Privacy. I'm curious the ripple effects this will have in the US LinkedIn: Ross Dawson : This is a major threshold in digital history. European - and in some cases other - users of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat can opt … Forums: Hacker News : The EU's Digital Services Act is now in effect r/technews : The EU's Digital Services Act goes into effect today: here's what that means r/technology : Big Tech isn't ready for landmark EU rules that take effect tomorrow [Updated]
TechCrunchNatasha Lomas
Context & Ripple Effects
The enforceable phase follows the DSA framework’s earlier requirements that major platforms explain recommendation systems and address misinformation in crises, as outlined in the law’s earlier platform-transparency obligations. The change matters because it turns those governance principles into product-level obligations for the largest services.
Platform preparation had already become operational work: Twitter underwent an early DSA compliance stress test, signaling that the rules would be tested through service design and processes rather than policy statements alone.
First-order effects
Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok must offer users a way to avoid recommendation feeds based on profiling, making a non-profiled recommendation option an immediate product requirement.
The covered platforms must operationalize DSA compliance around their recommendation systems, shifting responsibility from preparation to ongoing execution.
Second-order effects
Recommendation teams must accommodate a user-selected alternative to profiling-based personalization, creating pressure to measure engagement and content discovery across more than one feed model.
Other large platforms and search services covered by the regime face a clearer compliance benchmark, while users gain a more direct control over how content is ranked.
Third-order effects
If enforcement is sustained, interface-level choice over ranking logic could become a durable form of platform governance, rather than relying solely on disclosures about algorithms.
The DSA points toward greater accountability for distribution systems themselves: compliance may increasingly be assessed through whether controls work in the product, not just whether policies exist.
The trend: The DSA is part of a shift from regulating platforms’ published rules to regulating the design and operation of their content-distribution interfaces.
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…
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 🤡
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.
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.
[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.
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 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
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.
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]
💻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