EU singles out 19 tech giants for online content rules

On Tuesday, EU industry head Thierry Breton listed 19 corporations subject to landmark EU online content restrictions, including five Alphabet (GOOGL.O) subsidiaries, two Meta Platforms (META.O) entities, two Microsoft (MSFT.O) businesses, Twitter, and Alibaba’s (9988.HK) AliExpress.

The Digital Services Act (DSA) mandates risk management, external and independent auditing, data sharing with authorities and researchers, and a code of conduct by August.

Alphabet’s Google Maps, Play, Search, Shopping, and YouTube, Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, Amazon’s Marketplace, and Apple’s App Store are among the 19 firms.

Booking.com (BKNG.O), Pinterest (PINS.N), Snapchat (SNAP.N), TikTok, Twitter, Wikipedia, Zalando (ZALG.DE), and Alibaba’s (9988.HK) AliExpress are the others.

“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.

Companies must do more to combat disinformation, give users more protection and choice, and protect youngsters or face fines up to 6% of their global revenue.

Breton said he will decide in the coming weeks if another four to five enterprises fell under the DSA.

Breton criticized Facebook’s content control mechanism for influencing public sentiment.

“Now that Facebook has been designated a very large online platform, Meta needs to carefully investigate the system and fix it where needed ASAP,” he stated.

Breton prioritized Twitter and TikTok.

“At the invitation of Elon Musk, my team and I will carry out a stress test live at Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco,” he stated.

We will also stress test TikTok, which has expressed interest. “I look forward to an invitation to Bytedance’s headquarters to understand Tiktok’s origin,” Breton remarked.