EU heightens digital safety rules for ChatGPT, Roblox, Reddit

Aug. 31 (UPI) — The European Commission has placed ChatGPT, Roblox and Reddit under its strictest designations for online platforms under the Digital Services Act.

ChatGPT has been designated as a Very Large Online Search Engine, while Reddit and Roblox fall under Very Large Online Platforms. The move by the European Union will place the platforms under higher scrutiny which Henna Virkkunen, executive vice president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy said reflects their impact.

“These new designations mean that ChatGPT, Reddit and Roblox will now be held to a higher standard of scrutiny and accountability in the European Union, in line with their large impact on our citizens and society,” Virkkunen said in a statement.

The commission determined that ChatGPT should be classified as a search engine rather than merely an online platform because it draws results to queries from the Internet like other search engines. The commission concluded that the AI chatbot is a “hybrid service” because of its dual functions when responding to user prompts.

Companies that fail to comply with the rules of the Digital Services Act may be subject to fines of up to 6% of their annual global revenue.

Platforms and online services are subject to more stringent rules if they reach more than 45 million users in the European Union.

ChatGPT averages about 159 million users monthly in the European Union, OpenAI reported for the six months ending in March. Reddit reported reaching about 57.2 million and Roblox, about 48 million.

With the addition of the three online services, 28 platforms now fall under the Digital Services Act’s strictest tier of regulation.

Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his famed “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on August 28, 1963. The speech galvanized the nation’s civil rights movements and led to the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the 1968 Fair Housing Act. File photo by UPI | License Photo