WhatsApp will be partially subject to the Digital Services Act from May

WhatsApp, primarily known as a messenger service, will in the future be subject to the supervisory regime for very large platforms in the European Union (EU) as a hybrid service, similar to TikTok, Facebook, X, or Instagram. The EU Commission announced this unceremoniously on Monday afternoon. Affected by this classification is the sub-service "WhatsApp Channels", i.e., the function that primarily allows communication from a few authorized senders to many, mostly unknown, third parties. In addition to WhatsApp Channels with 232 million subscribers, stars and companies in particular use the function. The channel of the football club Real Madrid, for example, has 68 million followers on WhatsApp.

Four-month deadline until May

The EU Commission assumes that the function is used by more than 45 million users monthly in the EU and thus falls under the regulations of the Digital Services Act (DSA). The European regulations for very large platforms therefore explicitly apply only to "WhatsApp Channels". Following the official designation by the EU Commission as the supervisory authority for the largest services under the DSA, a four-month period now begins. Within this period, Meta must further adapt its processes for this part of the messenger to the criteria of EU law.

For example, Meta must equip moderation decisions with a better mechanism, even towards channel operators, and enable a more extensive appeals procedure against decisions. In addition, there is also the obligation to examine and address certain risks arising from the service itself more closely. For instance, if channels with inhuman, jihadist-propagandistic, or health-endangering content were operated en masse, the operator would have to take measures against it -- however, the DSA does not specify exactly how this is to be done. The procedure must only be effective and comprehensible.

Only channel function affected

This has nothing to do with the group function, which is popular with many users; only the channel function is affected, the EU Commission writes in its notification of designation: "WhatsApp's private messaging service, with which users can send text messages, voice messages, photos, videos, documents and call other users by voice and video, remain explicitly excluded from the application of the DSA." A comparable hybrid problem between messenger and platform already occurred in the past, for example with the Telegram messenger and its different functions.

(akn)