Digital Fairness Act

... to keep scrolling.

Um, we also, um, have more and more understanding of the addictive design of these platforms and, uh, there's also more and more signals that platforms are aware of their a- addictive, um, features, which is also why in Europe we are now discussing legislation to go beyond the Digital Services Act, the Digital Fairness Act, to, um, actually address these, um, unfair situations and, and these d- addictive design features.

Then there's the choice itself because millions of people clearly enjoy the algorithm, the feed, their feeds, you know, because it helps, you know, bring them information they might otherwise miss.

Is the goal to weak- weaken algorithms or to offer, and for the platforms to build better ones?

But it's now going to face stronger requirements to examine and reduce risks arising from its service, including risks to children and users' physical and mental well-being.

Also, could I mention, Colm, the Digital Fairness Act as well, another piece of legislation.

And you might think, oh, why do we need another one? But this is important.

The forthcoming Digital Fairness Act, this could become very important.

This is a new EU consumer law that the Commission is preparing.

It hasn't yet been passed, but the Commission has said it intends to address practices such as addictive design, dark patterns, interfaces designed to manipulate people's choices and unfair personalisation with children identified as a particular priority.

We've talked a bit about general market trends.

Um, we haven't talked about, like, how, how much attention are you paying to the, for example, the regulatory environment or, um, you know, the, the, the more political context? The reason I ask is, I've been, um-- I'm of the opinion, and this is my view and I don't necessarily think anyone else needs to share it, um, that a lot of the ways that, uh, regulation's been brought in in the last year or so, particularly the, um, Online Safety Bill, uh, Digital Markets Act, and the upcoming Digital Fairness Act are being directed at smaller develop- well, they're being directed at the developer rather than the platform, and I'm worried it's creating a bigger and bigger burden on, uh, creating games for smaller teams.

So I think one of the factors there is that we're creating, uh, uh, uh, governments, because of the way they're regulating, are creating barriers to smaller companies addressing the market.

Now, that may or may not be true.