ChatGPT Comes Under EU's Strictest Digital Oversight

Brussels is tightening its oversight of rapidly growing internet services. The European Commission has included ChatGPT, Reddit, and Roblox in a list of services subject to enhanced oversight under the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA). According to the European Commission, all three services exceed an average of 45 million monthly users in the EU. This means that the stricter requirements designed for large digital platforms with the potential to pose systemic risks will now apply to them.

“These new statuses mean that ChatGPT, Reddit, and Roblox will now be subject to stricter oversight and accountability requirements in the European Union,” said European Commission Executive Vice President for Technology Sovereignty, Security, and Democracy, Hennah Wirkenen.

Companies must assess and mitigate a range of risks, from illegal content and harm to minors to threats to fundamental rights, elections, public safety, and the physical and mental well-being of users.

The new status also grants the European Commission investigatory powers to examine the services' compliance functionalities and the systems underpinning them. ChatGPT has been recognized as a Very Large Online Search Engine (VLOSE), while Reddit and Roblox are categorized as Very Large Online Platforms (VLOP).

Companies must comply with the intensified DSA requirements by the end of January 2027. Notably, the inclusion of ChatGPT is particularly remarkable. The European Commission regards it as a hybrid service, which can be considered an online search engine, as it can perform searches on the internet when responding to users' inquiries. Thus, the large generative artificial intelligence service is being included in the DSA's most stringent level of oversight for the first time.

Oversight of compliance with DSA requirements will be carried out by the European Commission, cooperating with Ireland's media regulator, Coimisiún na Meán, in the case of ChatGPT and Reddit, while Roblox will collaborate with the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM).

Following the inclusion of these three services, the total number of online platforms and search engines that have attained the status of “Very Large” in the EU has reached 28.