The European Commission is examining whether Meta’s WhatsApp should be designated a “very large online platform” under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), a move that would place the service under a tighter set of obligations aimed at limiting systemic risks and tackling illegal content online.
A designation as a very large online platform, commonly referred to as a VLOP, applies to services with more than 45 million average monthly users in the EU. Once designated, a service has four months to comply with additional requirements, including a formal assessment of systemic risks and measures to mitigate them.
Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier told reporters on Friday that Brussels is “actively considering” such a designation for WhatsApp and that he would not rule out a future decision. The focus is on separating what the Commission considers private messaging, which is not treated the same way under the DSA, from WhatsApp’s “Channels” product, which allows one-to-many broadcasting and can function more like a social media feed.
WhatsApp has been publishing EU user figures for Channels to meet DSA reporting requirements. In a filing dated 14 February 2025, WhatsApp said there were about 46.8 million average monthly active recipients of WhatsApp Channels in the EU for the period 1 July to 31 December 2024. In a later filing dated 14 August 2025, it reported approximately 51.7 million for the period 1 January to 30 June 2025.
Those figures matter because the DSA’s “very large” label triggers direct Commission supervision and a set of duties designed for services with what Brussels describes as a “systemic” impact. The Commission’s own guidance states that very large platforms must comply with the “most stringent” DSA rules, reflecting concerns about the scale at which illegal content, manipulation, or other harms can spread.
If WhatsApp Channels were designated, the additional requirements would include producing and publishing annual risk assessments on issues such as the dissemination of illegal content and impacts on fundamental rights, public security, and the protection of minors, as well as commissioning independent audits. VLOPs are also expected to provide greater transparency around content moderation decisions and recommender systems, and to give vetted researchers access to certain platform data under the DSA’s framework.
A designation would also bring WhatsApp into a regulatory environment already affecting other major services. Facebook and Instagram are currently listed by the Commission as designated very large online platforms under the DSA, with a series of enforcement actions and information requests recorded against them. The Commission’s public list of designated VLOPs and search engines, updated on 5 December 2025, does not include WhatsApp.
The possible expansion of oversight to WhatsApp comes as Brussels continues enforcement work against large platforms. In October 2025, the Commission set out preliminary findings against Meta and TikTok over alleged breaches of DSA transparency and data access requirements, including how users can report illegal content and how researchers can scrutinise platform systems.
The DSA allows for significant penalties. Under the regulation, platforms that fail to comply can face fines of up to 6 per cent of global annual turnover, alongside other enforcement tools available to the Commission and national digital services coordinators.
A key question for WhatsApp is how the DSA’s platform obligations intersect with a service best known for private, end-to-end encrypted communications. The Commission’s remarks indicate it is looking at the boundaries between private messaging and more public-facing functions such as Channels. Unlike group chats or direct messages, Channels are designed for broadcasting updates to followers, which can raise different issues around content moderation, discoverability, and reporting pathways for unlawful material.
In early 2025, reporting around the DSA’s thresholds highlighted that WhatsApp’s Channels feature had crossed the user benchmark, while other messaging apps had not been brought into the strictest tier on the same basis. The Commission has previously emphasised that designation decisions are tied to published user numbers and the legal definition of the service in question.
For Meta, another layer of complexity is that its main EU establishment for key services is in Ireland, where the national digital services coordinator plays a role in the wider DSA cooperation framework, even as the Commission takes primary responsibility for supervising VLOPs.
No formal timeline has been announced for a WhatsApp decision. However, the Commission’s stance on Friday suggests that designation remains a live option, and one likely to turn on how Brussels classifies WhatsApp’s different functionalities and the extent to which Channels are treated as an online platform with EU-wide reach.
