Ms Niamh Hodnett:

It does make sense. The Digital Services Act states that platforms have to take mitigation steps to address the risk caused by recommender systems. It is not as black and white as defaulting to on or off. In our draft online safety code we have proposed as a supplemental measure that the platforms would carry out a risk or safety impact assessment specifically in respect of recommender systems. Some of the measures on which the platforms will report to us will include whether they should default to off or on. We have a long list of measures that could form part of this recommender safety plan, but those are our supplementary measures. The Digital Services Act does not state in black or white whether the systems should be on or off; it just says that the risks posed by recommender systems in terms of the amplification of harmful content online should be mitigated by the large platforms and that the platforms should take steps to protect minors.