As expected, the European Commission has designated ChatGPT as a Very Large Online Search Engine (VLOSE) and Reddit and Roblox as Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) under the Digital Services Act (DSA).
The DSA is one of the worst censorship laws in the EU, and its provisions are often unclear and open to interpretation, while the very concept of “systemic risk” that it is based on is very broad and can easily be abused to censor lawful speech.
Nevertheless, the law is there, and the Commission’s latest move means that the three companies will have to comply with its strictest rules, which include annual risk assessments, mitigation of those risks, and independent audits.
The designation was made based on the reported average monthly active users in the EU – 159.1 million for ChatGPT, 57.2 million for Reddit, and 46.6 million for Roblox, which is above the DSA’s threshold of 45 million.
The three will now have four months to implement the DSA’s additional obligations.
The annual risk assessment is one of the most controversial parts of the DSA, as it requires companies to identify systemic risks coming from the dissemination of illegal content.
But the assessment is not confined to illegal material. The law says providers should focus on information that is not illegal but contributes to identified systemic risks, and pay attention to how their services disseminate or amplify “misleading or deceptive content, including disinformation.”
This can be interpreted as a way for regulators to exert pressure on companies to censor or downrank lawful speech by linking it to the mitigation of “systemic risks.”
The DSA also orders companies to provide data to the European Commission and member countries’ authorities, as well as to vetted researchers, who can use it for studies concerning systemic risks. The data can also be used to assess how companies implement their risk mitigation measures.
