Disarranged Harmonization of Transparency Reporting by Social Media Platforms Under the Digital Services Act

TL;DR

This study systematically evaluates the data quality of transparency reports from major EU social media platforms post-DSA regulation, revealing persistent issues and proposing improvements for better interoperability and reliability.

Contribution

First comprehensive assessment of post-DSA transparency reporting quality across leading social media platforms, highlighting ongoing issues and suggesting targeted enhancements.

Findings

All platforms showed issues with data formatting, timeliness, and completeness.

Different reporting procedures caused inconsistent information across mechanisms.

Persistent issues hinder interoperability despite harmonization efforts.

Abstract

The European Commission recently introduced new regulation to harmonize transparency reporting of large online platforms under the Digital Services Act (DSA). Here, we present the first systematic evaluation of transparency reporting data quality after this normative change, for the eight largest social media platforms in the European Union. In detail, we run a set of large-scale quantitative analyses on key reporting dimensions, followed by a structured comparative assessment across platforms and reporting mechanisms. Among our findings is that: (i) the analyzed platforms had varying degrees of compliance and data quality, but all exhibited issues on data formatting, timeliness, consistency, and completeness; (ii) some platforms employed differing reporting procedures across mechanisms, which caused them to submit contrasting information; (iii) despite the harmonization, a number of issues still prevent interoperability between reporting mechanisms; and (iv) many of the previously identified issues with transparency reporting are still unresolved. We conclude by discussing implications for transparency auditing and proposing key targeted improvements to strengthen the reliability and interoperability of DSA transparency reporting.