The European Commission has imposed a fine of 120 million euros on Xthe former Twitter owned by Elon Musk, for failing to comply with the transparency requirements of the EU Digital Services Act (DSA). The fine, the first imposed in relation to this law, is related to «the misleading design of its blue checkmark, the lack of transparency of its advertising repository, and the lack of access to public data for researchers«.
The blue check mark, or “blue check”, occupies a prominent role in the sentence. It establishes that this brand, previously free and now paid, deceives users and violates the provisions of the DSA on the prohibition of deceptive design practices. As ruled by the commission, this mark makes it difficult, as currently designed, to verify authentic accounts, which facilitates scams and deceptions for other users of the platform.
In this regard, the ruling comments that «Although the DSA does not require user verification, it clearly prohibits online platforms from falsely claiming that users have been verified, when such verification has not been carried out.«.
In addition, the ruling points out the lack of transparency in X’s ad repository, and ensures that it has limited information about the content of these ads and who pays for them. This makes it difficult for the public, as well as researchers, to scrutinize advertising. The network has also not offered researchers access to its public data, as established in the EU Digital Services Law.
The ruling comes after an investigation launched in December 2023, two years ago, which aimed to determine whether X violated the requirements of the DSA in relation to the dissemination of illegal content. Also about whether the measures it was supposedly taking to combat disinformation were effective.
The ruling is not yet final, since It also has 90 days to address with the EU the European Commission’s concerns about its announcement repository and researchers’ access to public data. If you do nothing regarding these points mentioned above, you will likely face further fines.
Henna Virkkunen, Vice President of the European Commission for Technological Sovereignty, Security and Democracyhas pointed out about the decision that the European Commission has taken on X that «Misleading users with blue checkmarks, hiding information about ads and excluding researchers has no place on the Internet in the EU«.
