European Union: Adopted European Commission guidelines on the mitigation of systemic risks for electoral processes under Digital Service Act

On 26 March 2024, the European Commission adopted the guidelines on the mitigation of systemic risks for electoral processes under the Digital Service Act (DSA). The guidelines recommend mitigation measures and best practices to be undertaken by very large online platforms (VLOPs) and very large online search engines (VLOSEs) before, during, and after electoral events. In particular, mitigation measures include reinforcing internal processes, implementing elections-specific risk mitigation measures, adopting specific mitigation measures linked to generative AI, cooperating with EU-level and national authorities, and assessing the effectiveness of the measures through post-election reviews. Furthermore, the guidelines specify that political advertising has to be labelled and measures adopted to address foreign information manipulation and interference as required under the regulation on transparency of political advertising. The companies designated as VLOPs and VLOSEs are Alibaba AliExpress, Amazon Store, Apple AppStore, Booking.com, Facebook, Google Play, Google Maps, Google Shopping, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter, Wikipedia, YouTube, Zalando, Bing, Google Search, Pornhub, XVideos and Stripchat.