The European Union’s anti-deceit probe of tech giants has broken the Digital Services Act (EUEU): Musk, Meta, and Breton
Musk will have the chance to defend X against charges and suggest measures to address EU concerns. But if Musk refuses to remedy the issues, X could face a fine of up to 6% of the company’s annual worldwide revenue, a figure that can easily reach into the tens of millions of dollars.
Blue checks, which appear next to account names of X Premium subscribers, have been the subject of controversy since Musk acquired the platform in 2022. “Back in the day, BlueChecks used to mean trustworthy sources of information. Now with X, our preliminary view is that they deceive users and infringe the DSA,” EU internal market Commissioner Thierry Breton said in a statement. X has the right of defense, but if our view is confirmed we will impose fines and make significant changes.
“It negatively affects users’ ability to make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of the accounts and the content they interact with,” the commission wrote in its findings. There is evidence of malicious actors abusing the verified account.
The blue checkmark verification system that X uses is a violation of the European Union’s Digital Services Act as well as established industry practices. The EU found that X was failing to comply with transparency obligations regarding advertising and providing public data to researchers.
X must publish a database of all the ads it runs under the new law, with information about who bankrolled the ads and what audience the ads are for.
It is difficult for researchers to study emerging risks such as ads that carry harmful messages, because X’s ad database is not reliable.
On X, Musk wrote “if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us. The other platforms accepted the deal. Musk said that he would fight the case.
An investigation is underway to see whether X has done enough to fight illegal hate speech. That investigation is still ongoing, European officials said on Friday.
It’s the first time a company has been formally accused of breaching the DSA under the EU’s so-called preliminary findings. X has the opportunity to defend itself.
The crackdown on X comes as the EU ramps up enforcement of its strict rules for big tech companies. Separate DSA probes have been launched to assess whether Meta has done enough to moderate political, deceptive, or illegal content on Facebook and Instagram or safeguard children who use the platforms.
Enabling any account to pay for a verification breaches the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), European Commission officials said on Friday, because it “negatively affects users’ ability to make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of the accounts.” X now has a chance to respond to the findings. If Musk cannot reach a resolution with the EU, the company faces fines of up to 6 percent of its global annual turnover.
In the past month, Apple, Microsoft, and Meta have all been accused of breaking EU rules. Meta and Apple must resolve their cases before March 2025 to avoid fines. Yesterday, Apple said it would make its Tap and Go wallet technology available to rivals, in its latest concession to local regulator demands.