The European Union's (EU) sweeping Digital Services Act (DSA) is set to come into effect and impose new rules on content moderation, user privacy and transparency. Starting Friday (today), users in the EU will see major changes, in terms of their online life as Big Tech companies like Google, Meta-owned Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon, among others will be subject to a new set of digital regulations that aim to protect European users when it comes to privacy, transparency and removal of harmful or illegal content, the media has reported.
This users in the 27-nation EU can alter some of what shows up when they search, scroll and share on Big tech platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Google, Amazon and short-video platforms like TikTok, among others.
From Friday, a host of internet giants – including Meta's Facebook and Instagram platforms, Apple's online App Store, and a handful of Google services – will face new obligations in the EU, including preventing harmful content from spreading, banning or limiting certain user-targeting practices, and sharing some internal data with regulators and associated researchers, said a report by news agency Reuters.
The EU is spearheading tech regulation globally, with a far-ranging set of regulations. Social media companies have been often blamed for creating so-called filter bubbles and pushing users to increasingly extreme posts. It is the algorithmic recommendation systems of social media companies, based on user profiles that do this. The EU wants users to have at least one other option for content recommendations that is not based on profiling, said a report by France 24.
But researchers have raised questions over whether these companies have done enough to meet lawmakers' expectations. For now, the rules only apply to 19 of the largest online platforms, those with more than 45 million users in the EU. From mid-February, however, they will apply to a variety of online platforms, regardless of size, the Reuters report added.