The EU accuses Meta and TikTok of violating their obligations to give researchers adequate access to public data on their platforms under the DSA
Move comes as EU faces pressure over enforcing its tech lawbooks. — BRUSSELS — The European Commission on Friday accused Meta and TikTok …
Context & Ripple Effects
This accusation extends an active DSA enforcement record for TikTok: the Commission had already provisionally found shortcomings in TikTok's public ad library, while an earlier investigation examined child-protection duties. It puts access to platform data alongside content- and advertising-transparency requirements.
The companies have also contested aspects of the regime, including a supervisory-fee methodology that the General Court found flawed in their dispute over the DSA fee calculation. That makes this a test of enforcement obligations that is separate from, but politically intertwined with, the DSA's financing and legal design.
First-order effects
- Meta and TikTok face immediate Commission scrutiny over whether their researcher-access systems meet the DSA standard for public platform data.
- Researchers’ ability to independently examine public platform activity becomes the concrete compliance issue, rather than an optional transparency feature.
Second-order effects
- The case increases pressure on other covered platforms to review researcher-access procedures and documentation, particularly where public data is gated or difficult to use at scale.
- It reinforces the link between separate transparency duties: TikTok's earlier ad-library finding suggests the Commission can assess public accountability through multiple platform-data channels.
Third-order effects
- If sustained, enforcement could make reliable external research access a core operating requirement for large platforms, shifting the practical boundary between public data and platform-controlled access.
- The outcome will also shape how durable the DSA enforcement model is: the Commission must apply substantive duties while its methods remain open to legal challenge, as shown by the fee-methodology ruling.
The trend: EU platform regulation is moving from setting transparency rules to testing whether major services provide the data access needed for outside accountability.