LONDON, Aug 24 (Reuters) - More than a dozen of the world's biggest tech companies face unprecedented legal scrutiny, as the European Union's sweeping Digital Services Act (DSA) imposes new rules on content moderation, user privacy and transparency this month. The EU is seen as the global leader in tech regulation, with more wide-ranging pieces of legislation – such as the Digital Markets Act and the AI Act – on the way. For now, the rules only apply to 19 of the largest online platforms, those with more than 45 million users in the EU. Researchers removed the ads before they were published, so no Facebook users saw them. It will soon become obvious if any of the designated companies had "skirted their legal responsibilities," said Hayes.

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Persons: –, Kingsley Hayes, Keller Postman, Eko, Meta, TikTok, Zalando, Hayes, Martin Coulter, Josie Kao Organizations: Digital Services, Facebook, Google, Digital Markets, DSA, Reuters, European Commission, Twitter, YouTube, Global, Amazon, Thomson Locations: EU, Europe, Ireland, Luxembourg