How does Figma approach the Digital Services Act?

Last Updated February 15, 2024

Figma is committed to complying with the Digital Services Act (DSA). This article outlines Figma’s commitments under the DSA.

Contact Information

Should any governmental authority have any question about Figma’s practices under the DSA or otherwise, please reach out to legal@figma.com, and someone will respond promptly.

Any questions about any moderation action that Figma has taken can be directed to content-reviews@figma.com.

If you wish to report inappropriate or illegal content, please follow the processes outlined in Content and account moderation at Figma →

For prompt and accurate responses, please submit any communications or notices to Figma in English.

Information on active monthly users as of 31 January 2024

Under Article 24 (2) of the DSA, online platforms are required to publish information on the average monthly active recipients of the service in the EU at least every six months. This is for the purposes of determining whether an online platform is a “very large online platform” (VLOP), reaching an average of at least 45 million users per month in the EU.

We have calculated the average monthly active recipients of our service in the EU based on the period 1 August 2023 to 31 January 2024, in accordance with Recital 77 of the DSA. Our conclusion is that during this period the average number of monthly active recipients of our marketplace in the EU was below the 45 million user threshold for being designated as a VLOP.

We will continue to monitor the number of average monthly active recipients of our marketplace service in the EU and will publish updated information in accordance with Article 24 (2).

Figma’s Recommender Systems

Figma has several practices that could be considered “recommender systems” under the DSA, which are described here:

• On Figma.com/community (Community), there is a “Discover what’s new” section with various categories of resources. These resources have been hand picked by Figma to be the most useful or helpful resources in these categories.

• On Community, resources can be sorted by type (free or paid, plugins, widgets, or files, etc.). Such sorting is self explanatory. Within a particular type, resources can ordered in three different ways:

  • Popular: A blend of all resources, approximately ordered by their lifetime utilization
  • Recent: A blend of all resources based on when the resource was created
  • Trending: A blend of all resources approximately ordered by looking at utilization over a recent period

  Figma continually makes minor tweaks to its algorithm in each of these categories to ensure that results are most useful to users.

• When searching on Community, there is an additional ordering option: Relevancy. Under the relevancy sorting option, resources are ordered through a combination of query matching and the popularity of the resource.

• Collection pages on Community are made up of handpicked resources selected for their relevance, quality, and popularity.

• We may spotlight certain resources in each category, based on the same criteria.

• When looking at a resource on Community, we suggest other resources to you. Those suggestions are either “More by this creator” or “More like this”. “More by this creator” is a list of resources published by the same creator of the viewed resource. “More like this” is usually a list of resources with similar tags to the viewed resource. We may also show resources that we have algorithmically determined to be relevant to the resource, taking into account popularity, recently, similar tags, and other factors.

• In the Figma product (browser and editor) there are various text searching functionalities (for files, users, teams, etc.). Results are provided based on the overall “weight” of matches generated by an algorithm that assigns different weights to matches in different categories (title, user name, file text, metadata, etc.).

• In the file browser, we show different kinds of AI prompts to create a FigJam board (if applicable to you). These prompts are randomly selected from a list of prompts.

• Quick actions menu: The quick actions menu will show your three most recent activities within your current Figma session. If you do not have any recent activities, we search over all commands and menu items, as well as any plugins and widgets that you’ve saved.

• In the FigJam editor, we provide a shelf of recently used widgets. The widgets displayed are those that you’ve used most recently. New users start with JamBot, the Photo Booth widget, and Alignment scales, all of which are Figma-built widgets.

• If applicable to you, the AI modal in the FigJam editor shows a list of example prompts that are randomly chosen, similar to the file browser shelf.

• In various parts of the Figma platform, we show the faces (if the user has provided their face; if not it usually shows the first letter of their name) of those who are collaborating with you within a file. Such faces are usually ordered alphabetically, but this ordering may change if certain users are more prominent in the file, such as those users who Spotlight themselves or are editors in the file.

• When you “@mention” someone in a Figma file, we will suggest users based on various factors including users that you’ve mentioned or co-edited files with before.

• The notification bell orders notification by recency and importance. Notifications are more important if an action is required (such as approving a user) or if the notification is from Figma.

• Files and projects in Figma can be sorted by “Last viewed,” “Alphabetical,” and “Date created.” All such orderings are self explanatory.

• Teams in Figma are presented in alphabetical order.

• We show upsell modals based on related user behaviors when they do something that would hit a paywall, and we show educational modals when users do something related to a new feature or use case (whether a new feature gets an education modal is determined in Figma’s discretion based on the importance and expected use of the feature, along with its complexity).

• On certain Figma plans, we provide design system analytics; such analytics can be ordered from highest engagement to lowest engagement, and from most recently created to oldest. All such orderings are self explanatory.

• On certain Figma plans we may suggest files you should review based on new activity. Such files are ordered based on the importance of such activity, with edits (especially significant ones) being more important and views being much less important.

• Org admins are ordered on the Organization team page by the date that they joined the organization. Members have a similar ordering on pages where they’re ordered.

• Private plugins and widgets are ordered randomly on the plugins and widgets pages of your organization’s UI.

• When you load FigJam for the first time, we provide certain default plugins to assist with your FigJam experience. Those plugins have been handpicked by us, and as you use other plugins, they are replaced by your most recently used plugins.

• In FigJam, the template modal has a category for “Recommended” which is just a static list of top templates.

• For design systems:

  • Design system assets are populated in chronological order for styles and variables and the order can be overridden by the user via dragging and dropping in the UI. For components, the order maps to the tree structure of the layers in the file, and again this can be reordered by the user.
  • In the styles modal, if you don't pass a name, the system will give it a name based on the contents when you create it. In the case of colors: its #D9D9D9, for effects it populates the effect type, text is only ever "Test", and grid is always "Grid".
  • With variables we allows users to duplicate a variable in the modal, but we don't allow duplicate names, so names are auto incremented.

• Dev Mode:

  • Dev Mode will suggest variables with matching values to what is being used in the editor (from design systems)
  • Dev Mode also has a feature where it identifies vectors grouped together as icons, depending of various characteristics of the vectors, and surfaces them in the Assets panel.

For more information about Figma’s moderation practices, see Content and account moderation at Figma →