Brussels extends its strongest platform obligations to AI search, online communities and a service widely used by children The European Commission has plac…
Brussels extends its strongest platform obligations to AI search, online communities and a service widely used by children
The European Commission has placed ChatGPT, Reddit and Roblox under the European Union’s most demanding digital-platform rules, giving the three services four months to strengthen their scrutiny of risks affecting children, fundamental rights, public security and democratic processes. The designations reflect the scale of their European audiences, not a finding that any company has broken the law.
The Commission classified ChatGPT as a Very Large Online Search Engine, or VLOSE, while designating Reddit and Roblox as Very Large Online Platforms, known as VLOPs. Each service had reported more than 45 million average monthly users in the EU, the threshold established by the Digital Services Act.
According to the Commission’s designation announcement, the additional obligations must be met by the end of November 2026.
Three services, three different risk environments
The decision brings markedly different digital services into the same regulatory category. ChatGPT provides conversational answers and internet search capabilities. Reddit organises discussion through user-run communities and recommendation systems. Roblox combines gaming, social interaction and user-created virtual environments, with a particularly significant audience among children and teenagers.
The Commission’s published figures put ChatGPT at approximately 159.1 million average monthly recipients in the EU, Reddit at 57.2 million and Roblox at 46.6 million. Those numbers were reported by the providers and remain subject to the Commission’s assessment of how active recipients were calculated.
OpenAI’s own Digital Services Act information page says the ChatGPT figure relates specifically to its online search features during the six months ending on 31 March. The company also describes mechanisms through which European users can report potentially illegal content and challenge moderation decisions.
Classifying ChatGPT as a search engine is significant because conversational AI does not present information in the familiar form of a ranked list of webpages. Its responses can combine generated text, retrieved material and recommendations in a single authoritative-sounding answer. Assessing systemic risk will therefore require attention not only to what sources appear, but also to how information is selected, summarised and presented to users.
What the companies must now do
The Digital Services Act requires the largest platforms and search engines to identify and reduce systemic risks arising from their services and algorithmic systems. These include the spread of illegal material, threats to children, adverse effects on physical or mental wellbeing, discrimination, interference with fundamental rights and risks to elections or public security.
The providers will also face annual independent audits and stronger transparency requirements. Qualified researchers may seek access to certain platform data when studying systemic risks or evaluating whether safeguards work in practice.
That access could be especially important for examining recommendation systems and generative search. Regulators and researchers will need evidence about how harmful material is amplified, whether safety measures work consistently across European languages, and whether moderation systems place disproportionate restrictions on minority communities, journalists or political speech.
The law requires proportionate mitigation, rather than the elimination of every possible danger. A platform may change recommendation settings, improve reporting tools, redesign interfaces, adjust protections for minors or strengthen oversight of automated systems. The appropriate response will depend on the service and the risk identified.
Children’s rights move closer to enforcement
Roblox’s designation gives particular weight to the DSA’s protection-of-minors provisions. Children’s safety in virtual spaces encompasses more than unlawful content. It can include contact with unknown adults, manipulative commercial design, inappropriate recommendations, privacy risks and mechanisms that encourage prolonged or repeated use.
As The European Times previously reported, the European debate is increasingly moving from general concern about screen time towards scrutiny of platform architecture, recommender systems and age-appropriate design.
Effective protection will nevertheless require care. Intrusive age-verification systems can create new privacy risks, while overly broad filters can exclude young people from legitimate information and participation. The DSA obliges providers to consider fundamental rights when designing safeguards, making proportionality central to the coming compliance work.
Designation is not a verdict
The Commission’s action should not be confused with an infringement finding. ChatGPT, Reddit and Roblox entered the stricter regulatory category because of their scale. No breach was established through the designation itself.
Nor does the law instruct platforms to remove lawful criticism, political disagreement or controversial opinion merely because it may be considered harmful. The regulatory question is whether the companies have credible systems for understanding large-scale risks, responding proportionately and explaining their decisions.
That distinction matters for both accountability and freedom of expression. Poorly designed moderation can silence lawful voices, while weak safeguards can leave users exposed to harassment, fraud, manipulation or dangerous recommendations. The DSA attempts to address both problems by requiring evidence, transparency and independent scrutiny rather than relying exclusively on assurances from the companies themselves.
The next four months
The immediate challenge will be translating broad legal duties into service-specific measures. For ChatGPT, attention is likely to fall on generated search answers, source selection and the treatment of sensitive information. Reddit will face questions about recommendation systems, community governance and the relationship between company enforcement and volunteer moderation. Roblox will need to demonstrate that its protections reflect the vulnerability and rights of younger users.
The designations widen the reach of European platform regulation into three influential forms of online life: AI-assisted information, community discussion and participatory virtual worlds. Whether the decision produces meaningful protection will depend less on the labels themselves than on the quality of the risk assessments, the independence of audits and the ability of researchers and civil society to examine the evidence.
