EU Publishes Election Risk Guidelines Under Digital Services Act; EU Forces Amazon to Provide Greater Ad Transparency; X Expanding Access to Grok AI Chatbot Tool

by Aimee Newell Tarín on 28th Mar 2024 in News

On today’s news digest: EU Publishes Election Risk Guidelines Under Digital Services Act; EU Forces Amazon to Provide Greater Ad Transparency; X Expanding Access to Grok AI Chatbot Tool

With the Digital Services Act now in full force, the European Commission has published election security guidance for platforms with 45 million and over monthly active users in the region regulated under the act. Platforms targeted by the legislation include Google Search, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and YouTube, among others. Under the act, these platforms are legally bound to mitigate risks related to electoral processes, as well as safeguarding fundamental rights such as privacy and freedom of expression.

The EU has also ruled that Amazon must provide information about the ads running on its platform in a publicly accessible online archive in order to comply with the ads transparency requirement under the Digital Services Act. Amazon had legally challenged this requirement late last year, and was granted a temporary suspension on the ad library element by the EU General Court. However, the EU’s Court of Justice has chosen to reverse this suspension. This is a positive outcome for platform transparency: it will force the tech giant to be more open about the ads it displays and monetises.

In the AI landscape, X plans to expand access to its Grok Chatbot tool. Since the chatbot was launched to X users, it has only been available to those paying for X’s top tier package, Premium Plus. From this week, the tool will be available to all Premium subscribers. Musk has suggested that a more powerful Super Grok will soon be coming for X’s Premium Plus users.