WhatsApp would possibly quickly be topic to stricter scrutiny underneath the EU's Digital Companies Act

Meta’s messaging app WhatsApp may quickly be topic to deeper scrutiny (and punishment) underneath the European Fee’s Digital Companies Act, Reuters studies. As a result of the app’s broadcasting function WhatsApp Channels grew to round 51.7 million common month-to-month energetic customers within the European Union within the first six months of 2025, the function has crossed the 45-million-person barrier that lets DSA guidelines apply.

A platform is designated as a “very massive on-line platform” or VLOP as soon as it has 45 million month-to-month customers or extra, based on the European Fee. As soon as an app or service passes that quantity, it is topic to the DSA and all its guidelines about how digital platforms ought to function, significantly round eradicating unlawful or dangerous content material. Firms might be fined as much as six p.c of their international annual income for not complying with the DSA.

WhatsApp historically features as a personal messaging app, however its Channels function, which lets customers make one-sided posts to anybody who follows their channel, does look much more like Meta’s different social media platforms. “So right here we might certainly designate doubtlessly WhatsApp for WhatsApp Channels and I can affirm that the Fee is actively wanting into it and I would not exclude a future designation,” a Fee spokesperson mentioned in a day by day information briefing Reuters seen.

Engadget has requested Meta to touch upon WhatsApp’s attainable new designation. We’ll replace this text if we hear again.

The chance that WhatsApp may turn out to be a regulatory goal within the EU was first reported in November 2025, however Meta has been coping with DSA-related fines since properly earlier than then. Meta was charged with violating the EU regulation in October 2025 due to the way it asks customers to report unlawful content material on Fb and Instagram. Earlier that month, a Dutch courtroom additionally ordered the corporate to vary the way it presents the timelines on its platforms as a result of individuals within the Netherlands weren’t “sufficiently in a position to make free and autonomous selections about the usage of profiled suggestion techniques” within the firm’s apps.