The European Commission has released the list of 19 platforms under special surveillance as of August 25, 2023. Among these are many controlled by Google and Meta.
They are known by the acronym VLOP (Very large online platform) and have the characteristic of having a number of monthly users higher than 45 million. This is the trait shared by the 19 platforms selected by the European Commission to be under special observation starting from 25 August, i.e. the date established by the Digital Services Act.
Among these platforms, which as of the expiration date will have special obligations, are 17 online platforms and two search engines.
The list released by the European Commission includes: Alibaba AliExpress, Amazon Store, Apple AppStore, Bing, Booking.com, Facebook, Google Play, Google Maps, Google Search, Google Shopping, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter, Wikipedia, YouTube and Zalando.
As you can see, many of these platforms (5) are controlled by Google (Play, Maps, Shopping, Search and YouTube), 3 by Meta (Facebook , Instagram, Snapchat) and 2 by Microsoft (LinkedIn and Bing).
What platforms under special surveillance will have to do
For Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for the internal market and services, the big tech companies that want to continue operating in Europe "will have to change their behaviour". The platforms were chosen on the basis of user data published by February 17, 2023.
Starting from August 25th, platforms will have the obligation to delete illegal content, take care of content moderation and their language, send a periodic report to the Commission EU with a careful assessment of the risks for users (minors and adults) and the related interventions.
In general, it can be said that users will be given more power with regard to reports (which will be promptly examined), while platforms will have to act with greater transparency, for example in the context of advertisements , whose promoter will be reported.
Furthermore, users will have the right to not participate in recommendation systems based on profiling and not to receive advertisements based on their sensitive data (political and/or sexual orientation).
There is also a strong emphasis on protection of minors, which will pass, if necessary, also through a redesign of the systems, with the aim of guaranteeing the privacy and security of these subjects.
Compliance with the Digital Services Regulation will be ensured by a pan-European supervisory architecture which will be composed of supervisors designated by individual Member States.
The national supervisory authorities, which will work closely with the Commission, are to be set up by 17 February 2024 . The supervisory activity should not only concern VLOPs, but also smaller platforms.
In the event of failure to comply with the rules in question, the platforms will be sanctioned with a fine of up to 6% of their revenue or their closure.
The Wikipedia node
Among all the companies that own the platforms on this billionaire worth list, there is a white fly, Wikipedia, which is different from the others in many respects.
First of all, it is set up as a non-profit organization, therefore it is not for profit like the other platforms. In fact, its balance sheet is much lower: in 2021 it was worth just 150 million dollars, certainly not a few, but still small compared to those of other companies.
Then there is the issue of employees: complying with all the requests issued by the European Commission will require a considerable deployment of forces.
While large companies with tens of thousands of employees may face difficulties in the face of recent layoffs, the question arises how Wikipedia could manage, which in fact has only 700 between employees and paid collaborators .
Therefore, for the platform, also given the importance it holds in spreading knowledge and given its characteristics, the regulation seems to admit different rules compared to other platforms.
Original article published on Money.it Italy 2023-04-26 18:15:44. Original title: Big Tech, quali sono le piattaforme sotto sorveglianza speciale Ue
