The European Union (EU) industry chief Thierry Breton announced on Tuesday that 19 companies, including five Alphabet subsidiaries, two Meta Platforms units, two Microsoft businesses, Twitter, and Alibaba's AliExpress, are subject to landmark EU online content rules known as the Digital Services Act (DSA).
These companies, which include Google Maps, Google Play, Google Search, Google Shopping, and YouTube from Alphabet, Facebook and Instagram from Meta, Amazon's Marketplace, and Apple's App Store, will have to adopt a code of conduct and conduct risk management by August.
The DSA also requires these companies to share data with authorities and researchers, conduct independent auditing, and do more to tackle disinformation, give more protection and choice to users, and ensure stronger protection for children. Failure to comply with these regulations could result in fines of up to 6 per cent of their global turnover.
"We consider these 19 online platforms and search engines have become systematically relevant and have special responsibilities to make the internet safer," Breton told reporters in a press conference. He is in the process of verifying whether an additional four to five companies are subject to the DSA, and a verdict is anticipated within the coming weeks.
Breton criticised Facebook's content moderation system for its role in building opinions on key issues, saying that now that Facebook has been designated as a very large online platform, Meta needs to investigate the system and fix it where needed ASAP.
Twitter and TikTok also caught Breton's attention, and he announced that his team and he would carry out a stress test live at Twitter's headquarters in San Francisco at the invitation of Elon Musk.
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