§3.2.2 Third party scrutiny, research and data access

29. Third party scrutiny and research into mitigation measures are important to help providers of VLOPs and VLOSEs ensure that the measures they put in place are effective and respect fundamental rights, as well as democratic principles. Stable and reliable data access for third party scrutiny is of utmost importance during electoral periods to ensure transparency, advance insights and to contribute to the further development of risk mitigation measures around elections. In addition to their legal obligations under Article 40 of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 ( ), the Commission recommends that providers of VLOPs and VLOSEs provide free access to data to study risks related to electoral processes, including, where necessary, those not available on the VLOPs and VLOSEs interface, to relevant third-party stakeholders. In general, ad-hoc cooperation activities to design and, if necessary, swiftly adjust their risk mitigation measures in relation to electoral processes are recommended. Following documented best practice ( ), different measures could be considered to engage in such activities with third parties. 30. In addition to the tools and other access policies in place to comply with Article 40(12) of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, these measures can include additional and tailor-made tools, or features, including those necessary to study and scrutinise AI models, visual dashboards, additional data points being added to existing tools or the provision of specific datasets. Access to such tools or features could be extended to a wider range of third parties, in addition to the eligible researchers under Article 40 of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065. 31. In the area of political advertising, the Commission recommends that relevant providers of VLOPs and VLOSEs ensure that the tools and application programming interfaces (APIs) enabling research on their political advertising repositories (28) are fit-for-purpose and allow for meaningful research on disinformation, FIMI campaigns and hateful, (violent) extremist or radicalising content that is disseminated to influence individuals in their electoral choices during elections, including the elections to the European Parliament, in accordance with the requirements of Union law, including on the protection of personal data. This should include a set of minimum functionalities and search criteria that enable users and researchers to perform customised searches for data in as close to real time as possible during the electoral period (e.g., searches per advertiser or candidate, election, geographic area or country, language). 32. In addition to the reports referred to in Article 42(4) of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, the Commission recommends that providers of VLOPs and VLOSEs are as transparent as possible to the public about the design, functioning, and execution of mitigation measures related to electoral processes to allow for public scrutiny which in turn may impact the design of effective mitigation measures. During electoral periods, it is of particular importance that providers of VLOPs and VLOSEs show that content moderation decisions do not affect the equality of candidates or disproportionately favour or promote voices representing certain (polarised) views.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-09-07