OpenAI's ChatGPT growth puts it under stricter EU scrutiny, with Reddit, Roblox

The European Commission has advanced OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Reddit (NYSE: RDDT) and Roblox (NYSE: RBLX) to the toughest regulation tier on its Digital Services Act (DSA) as of Monday, August 31, 2026. 

ChatGPT became a Very Large Online Search Engine (VLOSE), while Reddit and Roblox were added to the Very Large Online Platform (VLOP) category.

The new designation for the US-based companies came after the European regulator acknowledged that they had grown large enough, especially in the bloc, to be held to a higher standard. 

What the EU’s ‘very large’ designation means

OpenAI, Reddit and Roblox now have four months to prove to Brussels that they have sufficient tools in place to handle risks associated with minors, elections and public safety. Failing to score passing marks could lead to fines of up to 6% of global revenue.

The EU’s “very large” designation is set at a 45 million average monthly users cutoff, with the level of platform supervision depending on how they place on the DSA’s bar.

• Reddit reported 57.2 million EU users in July. 
• Roblox had 46.6 million users in the same month. 
• ChatGPT’s designation was not as straightforward, with disagreements over whether the chatbot, which OpenAI claimed had 120 million users as of last year, was a platform or a search engine.

Brussels eventually filed it in the search engine sub-category. 

Roblox immediately expressed pride in becoming “the first gaming platform to reach this milestone in the EU.” Joost Hagesteijn, the company’s general manager for Europe, also invited further “constructive engagement” with the European regulator. 

Very large platforms face stricter scrutiny 

The European Commission now has direct oversight over ChatGPT, Reddit and Roblox, in the same way it watches over other tech giants that have earned the “very large” designation in the past. 

The Commission’s executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, Henna Virkkunen, wrote that the three US-based firms “will now be held to a higher standard of scrutiny.” She also emphasized that the Commission “will not hesitate to designate any platform” that clears the threshold and hold it accountable per the Commission’s standard.

All three of them now have until the end of December 2026 to identify and address any systemic risks that the DSA believes their services and algorithms create. The current list of infractions includes: 

• Propagation of illegal content
• Harm to minors
• Negative impact on users’ mental and physical health
• Threats to fundamental rights
• Interference with elections and public security

The December 2026 audit is only the first of their obligations. Per the European Commission’s digital policy pages, designated services must:

• Open their data to vetted researchers
• Submit to an independent yearly audit
• Run an internal compliance function
• Offer a version of their recommender systems that does not profile the user

Fines, appeals and a widening enforcement drive

Missing the December deadline carries a real cost. A company that fails to comply risks a penalty of up to 6% of its annual worldwide turnover, and, as legal scholar Steve Peers notes in an EU Law Analysis summary, continued breach of a Commission order can draw daily fines of as much as 5% of global turnover.

The designation itself can be fought, though challengers have not fared well. Both Amazon and Zalando lost General Court cases contesting their VLOP status and have appealed to the EU’s Court of Justice, per Peers.

Amazon argued the entire VLOP regime violated its right to conduct a business; the court accepted that the rules impose high costs but ruled the burden justified.

Monday’s move lands amid a run of DSA enforcement. The list of regulated services now numbers 28. In July alone, the Commission issued preliminary findings against TikTok over the safety of minors’ accounts, fined AliExpress 550 million euros over counterfeit goods, and accepted a compliance plan from X.

For OpenAI, the DSA label adds a second Brussels rulebook on top of the AI Act, which already governs ChatGPT.

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