Stricter EU online content regulations for Google, Twitter, and Meta

According to monthly subscriber counts reported by the businesses on Thursday, which exceeded the EU limit, Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc., and Twitter will be subject to tighter EU online content regulations.

Companies with more than 45 million users are classified as extremely large online platforms under the new regulations known as the Digital Services Act (DSA), and as such, are subject to requirements including risk control and external, independent auditing. They must also adopt a code of conduct and share data with researchers and regulators.

Online services and search engines were given until February 17 by the European Commission to disclose their monthly active users. The deadline for very major web platforms to follow the guidelines is four months, after which they risk fines.

Using data from the previous 45 days, Twitter estimated that there are 100.9 million average monthly users in the EU.

In order to demonstrate that users can access its services whether they are registered with an identity or not, Alphabet issued two sets of numbers: one for recipients who are logged in and another for recipients who are signed out.

“A total of 278.6 million people were reported to be logged in on a monthly average to Google Maps, 274.6 million to Google Play, 332 million to Google Search, 74.9 million to Shopping, and 401.7 million to YouTube.”

This week, Meta Platforms reported having 255 million regular active monthly Facebook users in the EU and roughly 250 million average monthly visitors among Instagram users in the final half of 2022.