Tech giants from Google to TikTok face stricter content rules in EU

Online platforms and search engines had until February 17 to publish their monthly active users.
Tech giants including Facebook, Google, Twitter, and TikTok face stricter online content rules in the European Union due to their huge number of users.
The new rules, known as the Digital Services Act, or DSA, classify companies with more than 45m users as very large online platforms 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 this Friday, February 17, to publish their monthly active users. Those labelled as large platforms have four months to comply with the rules or risk fines.
Twitter earlier this week said it had almost 101m average monthly users in the EU, based on an estimation of the past 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, almost 75m at Shopping and 401.7m at YouTube.
Apple said only its App Store built for its iPhones, with more than 45m 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.
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 e-commerce site AliExpress said its average monthly active users in the EU was above 45m. TikTok has almost 101m average monthly users, but 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.