Policy Brief for the European Commission's Digital Services Act implementation consultation

The Commission has requested feedback on the Delegated Regulation supplementing the Digital Services Act (Reg. 2022/2065) and annex. The Delegated Regulation lays down the framework for conducting an audit as mandated by art. 37 DSA. All VLOPs and VLOSEs must be subject to an external independent audit ensuring they comply with the various commitments of the Digital Services Act. The Delegated Regulation is an effort to harmonise and guide platforms and auditors in this process, setting the rules, standards, methodologies and procedures around the audit of the VLOP/VLOSE. The need for such guidance is rooted in the fact that audits for social media platforms are by necessity different from standard audits taking place in any other branch. The scope and opacity of VLOPs/VLOSEs exceed anything in todays society, creating a tension with the tools any organisation seeking to audit would have. This tension is reflected in some of the points and questions marked below.