Welcoming the Digital Services Act

[Updated June 7, 2024]

Adapting our Audience-Building Tools in Europe

Over these initial months of the Act being in effect we’ve had a number of discussions and information-sharing engagements with the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology. Topics include our protections in place for elections and civic integrity, researcher access to platform information, and protection of minors. Most recently, we discussed tools we provide to advertising customers.  

After consultation with DG-CNECT and others, we’ve decided to adjust those tools by removing the ability to create an advertising audience in Europe that uses membership in LinkedIn Groups as an input. We made this change to prevent any misconception that ads to European members could be indirectly targeted based on special categories of data or related profiling categories. The change is effective now for all new advertising campaigns. We appreciate the constructive engagement with DG-CNECT on this project.

This post was updated on June 7, 2024 to reflect how we have adapted our audience building tools in Europe.

August 25, 2023

Today the European Union’s Digital Services Act, one of the most comprehensive pieces of online safety legislation ever drafted, comes into full effect. It calls for heightened transparency, greater controls for users and additional accountability from online platforms. 

LinkedIn is designated as a Very Large Online Platform under the DSA, along several other platforms and services, and we’ve been hard at work for over a year to get ready. As the world’s largest professional network, we’ve always strived to maintain a safe, trusted, and professional platform and welcome laws like the DSA that codify the types of online safety best practices that we’ve always supported.     

What does the DSA mean for our EU members? 

Heightened Transparency

Several years ago, we started communicating with members about the actions we take on content they report. We continue to believe that this type of transparency is important to maintain a safe, trusted, and professional platform and in connection with the DSA, we’re expanding it to include more information about our decisions, including whether automated systems or humans did the review. We’re also adding the ability for members who think a mistake was made on that content they reported to appeal our decision. On the advertising front, we recently published our global Ad Library, where users can access information about ads that have run on LinkedIn and across our network of publishers. And finally, we’re expanding on our ‘Why am I seeing this ad’ feature to include additional information about the type of ads members see and other options to manage the advertising experience.

Greater Control for Users

We’ve expanded the option for members to view a non-personalized version of their feed. That is available on both desktop and mobile now. Choosing to view a non-personalized feed sorted by recency will still include content from the people and pages members are connected with or follow. Guest visitors to LinkedIn will now have greater control, as well, because we built a solution that allows them to report content without logging in. 

Accountability

In addition to the new Ad Library, qualifying researchers will now have greater access to public data from the LinkedIn platform. Every year, we will conduct a risk assessment focused on 11 systemic risks identified by the European Commission and make public an overview report of our findings. And LinkedIn, like all Very Large Online Platforms, will be subject to an annual third party audit that vets compliance with the DSA.

While not exhaustive, this overview highlights some of the important ways that our members and customers will benefit from this important new law. If you’d like to learn more about the DSA, you can visit the European Commission’s website.