European Commission says Bluesky is breaking European rules
Social media darling Bluesky is wooing users and drawing many away from X. But while the platform is enjoying a meteoric rise in popularity, the European Commission is unimpressed with its failure to disclose information.
The commission points out that all social media platforms operating within the European Union must clearly publish key pieces of information, including how many EU users there are. Bluesky does not do this, nor reveal where the company is legally established.
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The number of global users of Bluesky continues to rise, and while this is something the platform is clearly happy with, there is a very, very long way to go before user numbers are close to those of its biggest competitors. The site is just about managing to cope with the influx of users, scaling relatively well so far, but legal battles with the EU may not have been a consideration.
In a report in the Financial Times, European Commission spokesman Thomas Regnier is quoted as saying:
All platforms in the EU [...] have to have a dedicated page on their website where it says how many users they have in the EU and where they are legally established. This is not the case for Bluesky as of today. This is not followed.
The rule is part of the Digital Services Act which has been in force for a number of months now. Elaborating to TechCrunch, Regnier said:
Article 24 of the Digital Services Act indeed requires all online platforms in the EU, including BlueSky, to report their user numbers twice a year (in February and August) on their own website. This helps the Commission to monitor market developments and potentially designate -- or undesignate -- platforms as [VLOPs] if they meet the threshold [of] 45 million monthly active users in the EU.
Bluesky says it is working to ensure compliance with EU legislation.
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