Digital Services Act

The Digital Services Act is a law of the European Union. It sets out which rules providers of internet services must follow when they operate in Europe. This mainly concerns platforms where users upload content themselves: social networks, video portals, sales sites, app stores. The core of the law can be summed up simply: what is prohibited offline must also be consistently removed online. At the same time, users should better understand why certain posts are shown to them or deleted. The law has applied to practically all affected services since February 2024, and to the largest ones since summer 2023. The German name is "Gesetz über digitale Dienste," but it is almost always abbreviated as DSA.

Why Europe re-regulated the internet

The rules that applied until then dated back to the year 2000. At that time there were neither social networks nor recommendation algorithms, i.e. programs that automatically select which posts a user gets to see. The old rules essentially said only: a platform is not liable for third-party content as long as it has no knowledge of it. How it should search for problems and what else it must do remained unclear.

In the meantime, some platforms have become central venues for public debate. Along with this grew frustration over hate speech, counterfeit products, fraudulent ads, and targeted disinformation. Previously, companies largely decided for themselves what to do about this. The DSA shifts this decision partly to lawmakers and to state regulatory authorities.

An important distinction is often confused. The DSA does not prescribe which opinions are permitted. It prescribes procedures: how quickly a response must be given, how a deletion must be justified, how one can file a complaint. A second EU law, the Digital Markets Act, regulates competition between large tech companies instead. The two are frequently mixed up, but they concern different issues.

Reporting channels, transparency, and the rules for the very largest players

Every platform must offer an easily findable reporting channel. Anyone who reports potentially illegal content there must receive a response. If a post is deleted or an account suspended, the affected person is entitled to a justification. There must also be a way to file a complaint without having to go straight to court.

The law works with tiers. A small forum has few obligations, a large marketplace considerably more. The strictest tier applies to so-called very large online platforms with more than 45 million users per month in the EU. These include, among others, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Amazon, and X. These services must examine every year what risks they pose, for example to the health of young people or to elections. Independent auditors review the results.

On top of that come specific bans. Advertising based on religion, political opinion, or health data is prohibited. For minors, no personalized advertising may be shown at all. Users must also have the option to display their feed without personalization, i.e. purely chronologically. All of this is overseen by the EU Commission for the largest services and by national authorities for all others. In Germany, this is the Bundesnetzagentur.

The DSA in everyday life and in the headlines

The law becomes visible in many small ways. Next to ads, it now states who paid for them and why they were shown. In the settings of some apps there is a toggle for a non-personalized feed. And when a comment is removed, a message with justification and a link to object now comes more often.

In business news, the DSA mainly appears in connection with proceedings. The EU Commission has launched investigations against, among others, X, TikTok, AliExpress, and Meta. These concern issues such as child protection, the addictive effect of recommendation systems, and how misleading content is handled. In the end, fines of up to six percent of global annual turnover can result, and in extreme cases even a ban within the EU.

The DSA is also relevant to AI topics. Automatically generated images and videos must be labeled as such on very large platforms. The systems that automatically check or recommend content also fall under the transparency obligations. Critics consider the rules too burdensome, especially for smaller European providers. Supporters see it as a model that other countries are now copying.