BRUSSELS: Tech giants including Facebook, Google, Twitter and TikTok face strict online content rules in the European Union due to their huge number of users.

The new rules, known as the Digital Services Act (DSA), classify companies with more than 45 million users as very large online platforms (VLOPs) and require them to do risk management and external and independent auditing.

They will also have to share data with authorities and researchers and adopt a code of conduct.

The European Commission had given online platforms and search engines until Feb 17 to publish their monthly active users. Those labelled as VLOPs have four months to comply with the rules or risk fines.

Twitter said on Thursday it had 100.9m average monthly users in the EU, based on an estimation of the last 45 days.

Google owner Alphabet provided one set of numbers based on users’ accounts and another set based on signed-out recipients, saying users can access its services whether they sign in to an account or are signed out.

It said the average monthly number of signed-in users totalled 278.6m at Google Maps, 274.6m at Google Play, 332m at Google Search, 74.9m at Shopping and 401.7m at YouTube.

Apple said only its App Store built for its iPhones, with more than 45 million monthly users, qualified as a very large online platform. But it will also apply the same rules to the App Store for iPads, Mac computers, Apple Watch and TV, and to its Apple Books e-books and podcasts paid subscriptions.

“Apple intends, on an entirely voluntary basis, to align each of the existing versions of the App Store (including those that do not currently meet the VLOP designation threshold) with the existing DSA requirements for VLOPs,” it said on its site.

Amazon said it had more than 45m users in the EU, while Microsoft said its Bing search engine had 107m average monthly users in the last six months of 2022.

Alibaba Group Holding’s e-commerce site AliExpress said its average monthly active users in the EU was above 45m from Aug 1 last year to Jan 31 this year.

TikTok has 100.9m average monthly users in the EU based on an estimation of the last 45 days.

Ebay said it was below the EU user threshold.

Meta Platforms has said it had 255m average monthly active users on Facebook in the EU and about 250m average monthly active users on Instagram in the last six months of 2022. Companies will have to report user numbers every six months.

Published in Dawn, February 18th, 2023