The European Commission on Monday placed ChatGPT in the strictest tier of the Digital Services Act (DSA), the European Union’s rulebook for online platforms. Anthropic’s Claude was left out.

Regulators classed ChatGPT as a Very Large Online Search Engine, with Reddit and Roblox named Very Large Online Platforms. Claude escaped because its declared European user base sits below the legal cut-off.

Why the DSA Designation Turns on Raw User Counts

Designation is a size test, not a safety verdict. The trigger is 45 million average monthly users in the European Union, and companies declare their own figures before the Commission acts.

ChatGPT’s search function reported 159.1 million, roughly 3.5 times the threshold. Reddit declared 57.2 million. Roblox cleared the bar by 1.6 million, the narrowest margin of the three.

The meter runs both ways. The Commission stripped Stripchat of its designation in May 2025, after the adult platform’s audience fell back under the line.

“…will not hesitate to designate any platform that meets the threshold for enhanced supervision under the Digital Services Act,” said Henna Virkkunen, the European Union’s Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy.

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Why Anthropic’s Claude Stayed Below the 45 Million Line

Anthropic publishes its own count, a disclosure the DSA demands at least twice a year. For the six months ending 31 October 2025, it concluded that Claude’s European recipients fell well below the threshold.

The exact figure stayed private, and that snapshot is now ten months old. A newer one is already due, and Anthropic has since pitched investors on a record public listing.

The designated three have four months to comply, putting the deadline in January 2027. They must then assess systemic risks covering illegal content, minors, mental well-being and elections, and open their systems to audits.

Enforcement is no longer theoretical, considering the Commission fined X (formerly Twittter) 120 million euros in December 2025. This was the first non-compliance decision under the law, which allows penalties up to 6% of global turnover.

Claude’s exemption rests on scale alone. Anthropic already faces a suit over training data, and its next European filing decides whether the heaviest DSA chapter follows.

Source: BeInCrypto