When Is Content "AI-Generated Enough"? Labelling Synthetic Media under the Digital Services Act and the AI Act

Marie-Therese Sekwenz

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arXiv · 2609.07727

When Is Content "AI-Generated Enough"? Labelling Synthetic Media under the Digital Services Act and the AI Act

Marie-Therese Sekwenz

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Abstract

European platform and AI governance increasingly relies on transparency duties to address synthetic and manipulated media. Under the DSA, very large online platforms and search engines may use prominent markings and recipient-facing indication tools as systemic-risk mitigation measures. Under the AI Act, providers must support machine-readable marking, while deployers must disclose deepfakes and certain AI-generated or manipulated public-interest text, subject to statutory qualifications. This extended abstract examines when labelling is a meaningful regulatory response to synthetic media and when it risks becoming over-inclusive, under-inclusive, or ineffective. It argues that the central challenge is not only whether content should be labelled, but how legal thresholds, technical provenance systems, platform interfaces, and reporting practices determine when content is sufficiently generated, manipulated, or authentic-looking to trigger transparency obligations. Drawing on the emerging Article 50 AI Act implementation framework and a snapshot of the DSA Statement of Reasons database, the paper identifies four governance tensions: definitional ambiguity, interface and responsibility design, communicative effectiveness, and fairness and contestability. It conceptualises labelling as a socio-technical classification practice that distributes responsibility among AI providers, deployers, platforms, uploaders, and recipients.

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Marie-Therese Sekwenz. 2026-09-07. When Is Content "AI-Generated Enough"? Labelling Synthetic Media under the Digital Services Act and the AI Act. https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.07727

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