Nothing Found

By Daniel Holznagel

At the end of 2024, the first audit reports under the Digital Services Act were published. Most were produced by Big Four accounting firms — and were, in many ways, not very ambitious. This post collects impressions from digesting most (not all) of these reports, focusing on five structural shortcomings that severely limit their usefulness: from illegitimate audit gaps to auditors’ apparent reluctance to interpret the law or meaningfully assess systemic risks (especially around recommender systems). The post also highlights a few useful disclosures — including platform-defined compliance benchmarks — and outlines where auditors, regulators, and civil society should push for improvements in future rounds.

By Taylor Annabell, Utrecht University

Under the DSA, social media platforms must provide clear tools for influencers to disclose paid content. But how well do they meet this obligation, and how rigorously is compliance assessed? This post compares eight DSA audit reports on influencer marketing disclosures under Article 26(2) and finds striking inconsistencies in how audits were conducted, what was measured, and how “compliance” was defined. The findings raise broader concerns about audit transparency, platform-defined standards, and the need for clearer guidance on what adequate disclosure—and meaningful oversight—should look like.