"The European Commission announced a fine of €120 million on Elon Musk's social media platform X on Friday for breaching transparency obligations required by the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA), marking the first penalty issued under the bloc's online governance rulebook. The Commission's investigation found the platform had violated several DSA requirements - including in relation to the design of its "blue check mark" system which the EU determined was unlawfully deceptive. Under Musk's ownership of the platform the feature was changed from denoting verified accounts to being a signal that users could pay to obtain. The EU's investigation also concluded that X had failed to comply with DSA transparency rules related to the design of its advertising repository and by not providing researchers with access to public data as the law requires."
"A Commission official provided a breakdown of the penalty - saying €45 million was for the blue checks' deceptive design, €35 million for the ad repository's non-compliance, and €40 million for X failing to provide access to public data for researchers. Tech Commissioner and EVP, Henna Virkkunen, told reporters earlier on Friday that the €120 million fine reflects "the nature of the infringement, the gravity of the breach for EU users, and the duration" of the violations. "As we know, this is the first non-compliance decision under the DSA," she also said, confirming that this is not the last word on X as the Commission is continuing other investigations it opened on the platform almost two years ago."
The European Commission imposed a €120 million fine on X for multiple breaches of the EU Digital Services Act transparency obligations. The probe found the platform redesigned its blue check mark to signal paid subscriptions rather than verified identities, a practice deemed unlawfully deceptive. The investigation also identified shortcomings in the advertising repository's design and X's failure to grant researchers mandated access to public data. The penalty was broken down into €45 million for the blue checks, €35 million for the ad repository, and €40 million for data-access failures. Further EU probes into X's risk mitigation and content measures remain ongoing.
Read at Euractiv
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