AIBRIEF
The Digital Services Act designations cross the bloc's 45 million EU user threshold and give the three services until December 2026 to meet the rulebook's strictest ad targeting, transparency, and audit rules.
The European Commission has formally classified ChatGPT, Reddit, and Roblox as Very Large Online Platforms under the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA), the bloc's content-moderation rulebook. ChatGPT was also separately designated a Very Large Online Search Engine. The designations cross the DSA's 45-million-average-monthly-EU-user threshold and put all three services on a December 2026 compliance deadline.
VLOP status unlocks the DSA's strictest obligations. Platforms must stop targeting ads to minors and bar profiling based on sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, or political beliefs. They must publish how their recommendation systems rank and personalize content, and they must submit to independent risk audits covering illegal content and harms to fundamental rights. They also owe annual transparency reports and a fee covering the Commission's enforcement costs.
"Every European user deserves to know how these platforms work and what risks they carry," said Henna Virkkunen, the Commission's executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy, in the announcement.
The trigger threshold is statutory: the DSA defines a Very Large Online Platform as one with at least 45 million average monthly users in the EU. The Commission has not disclosed how it measured ChatGPT's EU user base. OpenAI, Reddit, and Roblox now have until the end of December 2026 to bring their systems into compliance.