EU accuses X platform of DSA violations and misleading users

Shafaq News/ On Friday, the European Commission accused the “X” platform of “misleading” users and violating European Union rules through the blue marks approved mainly to authenticate accounts supposed to belong to reliable sources of information.

The Commission also found that Elon Musk's company was not meeting its transparency obligations regarding broadcasting advertisements and researchers' access to platform data.

Executive Vice-President in charge of competition policy, Margrethe Vestager, said, “Today we issue for the first time preliminary findings under the Digital Services Act. In our view, X does not comply with the DSA in key transparency areas, by using dark patterns and thus misleading users, by failing to provide an adequate ad repository, and by blocking access to data for researchers. The DSA has transparency at its very core, and we are determined to ensure that all platforms, including X, comply with EU legislation.”

"“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. We also consider that X’s ads repository and conditions for data access by researchers are not in line with the DSA transparency requirements. X has now the right of defense — but if our view is confirmed we will impose fines and require significant changes," said Commissioner for Internal Market, Thierry Breton.

This accusation is the first under the new Digital Services Act (DSA), which came into effect in 2023 to protect Internet users from dangerous content.

If the Commission's initial findings are upheld, it would issue a non-compliance decision, alleging that X has violated Articles 25, 39, and 40(12) of the DSA. Such a ruling could result in fines of up to 6% of the provider's global annual turnover and require corrective actions to rectify the breach.