The European Union has leveled serious allegations against Elon Musk’s social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, accusing it of breaching the bloc’s stringent Digital Services Act (DSA). The European Commission’s preliminary findings mark the first charges against a tech company since the DSA’s implementation, spotlighting X’s controversial blue checkmarks and other transparency issues.
The DSA, a comprehensive set of regulations, mandates that platforms must take greater responsibility for safeguarding European users and eliminating harmful or illegal content. The European Commission’s investigation into X revealed that the platform’s blue checkmarks, which can be purchased for $8 per month, constitute “dark patterns” that mislead users. Before Musk’s acquisition, these checkmarks were reserved for verified accounts of celebrities, politicians, and other influential figures. However, the new system allows anyone to obtain a “verified” status, which the Commission argues undermines users’ ability to discern the authenticity of accounts and content.
“Back in the day, blue checks used to mean trustworthy sources of information,” European Commissioner Thierry Breton stated. “Now with X, our preliminary view is that they deceive users and infringe the DSA.”
The Commission also criticized X for failing to comply with advertising transparency rules. Under the DSA, platforms must maintain a searchable and reliable database of all digital advertisements, including details about the advertisers and the targeted audience. However, X’s ad database has been found to have “design features and access barriers” that hinder its transparency purpose, making it difficult for researchers to investigate emerging risks from online ads.
Furthermore, the Commission drew attention to X’s failure in providing access to public data. In particular, the DSA requires platforms to facilitate independent research of how they work and the evolution of online risks. While this is the case, the existing system of X either discourages research or places a hefty cost on it, which is at the expense of the researchers being able to effectively scrutinize the platform.
X now can respond to such allegations and make good all deficiencies in its compliance with the DSA. In case of dissatisfaction by the Commission with this, it may be authorized to enforce penalties of up to 6% of the annual worldwide turnover of the company concerned, along with the enforcement of remedial measures.
The probe into X remains ongoing, as regulators are still investigating whether the platform does enough to stem the tide of illegal content, ranging from hate speech to incitement to terrorism, and if it can be said to effectively flag such instances of misinformation through its Community Notes fact-checking feature.
Aside from that, other tech giants like TikTok, AliExpress, and Meta Platforms are also facing inquiries over their alleged violation of the DSA. Dealing with preliminary findings against X is a cautionary signal to tech companies that the bloc is serious about holding them accountable for their actions, no matter what.
More for you:
- European Union says X’s blue checks are deceptive ‘dark patterns’ that breach its social media laws.
- Elon Musk’s X breached the EU digital content rules by misleading users, EU Commission finds.
- EU accuses Elon Musk’s X of misleading users.