News from Across the Sea #13
Issue No. 13 of 2026 of our bimonthly newsletter on the European Union's Digital Services Act (DSA).
News from Across the Sea #13:
Welcome to a new issue of our newsletter! If we thought the pace of digital regulation in Europe was going to slow down for the summer, the summer season proved otherwise. The European Commission stepped on the gas with new designations of very large online platforms, while exploring new avenues outside the DSA to protect minors online.
ChatGPT, Reddit, and Roblox Under the DSA’s Scrutiny
The European Commission officially designated Reddit and Roblox as Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) and ChatGPT as a Very Large Online Search Engine (VLOSE) under the Digital Services Act. These designations subject these services to stricter obligations to analyze and mitigate systemic risks that may arise from their operation and use. Some experts have wondered whether ChatGPT’s designation might lead to significant changes in how it operates. Lena-Maria Böswald, a researcher at Interface, wrote about the regulatory implications of the designation, as well as the differences and overlaps in the obligations ChatGPT will face under the DSA and the AI Act. Similarly, Raziye Buse Çetin (AI Forensics) and Natalia Stanusch (AI Forensics and the University of Amsterdam) highlighted, in this blog post, the need for greater transparency and coordination under both regulatory frameworks to assess the various risks posed by chatbots when used as search engines.
Protecting Minors: The Kids Act Is Here
In our last issue, we reported that the Special Panel on Online Child Safety had presented its report with recommendations to the European Commission. Now, the Commission has presented a draft legislative proposal that incorporates many of those recommendations.
It is difficult to determine exactly where the recently proposed Kids Act would fit within the digital regulatory landscape, as it is a cross-cutting regulation that overlaps in some respects with the DSA and with other regulatory proposals such as the Digital Fairness Act. The proposal is currently in the public consultation. However, civil society actors question the lack of transparency in the process that led to the drafting of the bill now under public consultation.
The protection of young people therefore remains the driving force behind the most heated discussions on platform regulation around the world. In this ongoing research, we at CELE are mapping many of these processes. The perceived urgency of legislation on this matter is beginning to clash with the need to preserve the human rights of internet users, which is why new legislative proposals are already sparking resistance from civil society, academia, and even the courts—as in the case of the French Constitutional Council, which recently ruled that a law banning children under 15 from using social media was unconstitutional. In this post on La Silla Vacía I analyze these tensions in greater depth.
What Are We Reading?
- Michael Veale, from University College London, carefully analyzes the shortcomings in the definitions, scope, and legislative technique of the recently proposed Kids Act and argues: this is not the legislative proposal Europe needs.
- Emmanuel Vargas Penagos, from Örebro University, analyzes the certification processes for out-of-court dispute resolution mechanisms under the DSA from the perspective of compliance with international standards on freedom of expression.
- David Sullivan, Jonny Shipp, and Farzaneh Badiei, from the Digital Trust and Safety Partnership, explain the problems with the fee structure of out-of-court dispute resolution mechanisms under the DSA.
- Martin Husovec has made his book “Principles of the Digital Services Act” (Oxford University Press, 2024) available for free download.
Thank you very much for joining us again on this journey. See you soon!
See you next time!