In recent years, EU and national regulators have put forward different initiatives specifically targeting online platforms. Most of these initiatives try to ensure that platforms are:

• more active in fighting illegal content; and
• more transparent and fair towards consumers and businesses offering products and services.

Cullen International's European Digital Economy service covers national initiatives of this kind in nine EU countries.

This is the second of three benchmarks we are releasing on national developments affecting platforms in Europe. Over three weeks, we will share with you one benchmark per week.

Challenge 2: Illegal content

Parallel to EU initiatives, some EU countries have recently taken specific measures to make sure that online platforms are more active in fighting against the illegal content that they store.

Our research shows, for instance, that:

• of the nine countries surveyed, only Germany, Italy and Sweden have recently adopted binding legislation obliging social media and other platforms to remove harmful content expeditiously; and
• most of the initiatives in the countries surveyed target social media platforms.