Karlin Lillington, in the Irish Times today, is opining that the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) came into effect last week and is one of the most important pieces of legislation you “never heard of”.
I have a strong interest in digital services, having built my business on the platforms provided by digital service providers, and was interested to find out what was so important about this piece of legislation and what implications it would have for me as a business and as a user of digital services.
I was surprised to read that the most significant change is that users can now have content fed up to them chronologically instead of by reference to the user’s preferences and previous activity.
That’s it?
How am I better off with that scenario if I opted for it?
I want stuff served up to me that I am interested in. Stuff like photography, Trump, cycling, videography, podcasting, online marketing.
I have no interest in cooking videos or crochet or dog grooming. Nothing against these activities but don’t waste my time serving this stuff up simply because it is in some type of chronological order.
We can all get up on our high horse about the likes of Facebook, YouTube, Tiktok, Instagram and how they carry on. But they can continue to serve me stuff that I am interested in, based on my previous viewing activity, thank you very much.
It remains to see how important the European Union’s Digital Services Act really is.
Anyway, if you want to learn how to use and exploit the digital platforms to build your business or brand you could do worse than follow my strategy.