EU hits Musk's X with $210 million fine for breaching bloc's social media law

"Elon Musk's social media platform X has been fined 120 million euros ($210 million) by European Union regulators for breaches of the bloc's digital regulations they said could leave users exposed to scams and manipulation. The European Commission issued its decision following an investigation it opened two years ago into X under the 27-nation bloc's Digital Services Act, also known as the DSA. It's the first time that the EU has issued a so-called non-compliance decision since rolling out the DSA."

"The sweeping rulebook requires platforms to take more responsibility for protecting European users and cleaning up harmful or illegal content and products on their sites, under threat of hefty fines. The Commission said it was punishing X, previously known as Twitter, because of three different breaches of the DSA's transparency requirements. The decision could rile President Donald Trump, whose administration has lashed out at digital regulations, complaining that Brussels was targeting US tech companies and vowing to retaliate."

"Before Musk acquired X, when it was previously known as Twitter, the checkmarks mirrored verification badges common on social media and were largely reserved for celebrities, politicians and other influential accounts. After he bought it in 2022, the site started issuing the badges to anyone who wanted to pay $US8 per month for one. This means X does not meaningfully verify who is behind the account, "making it difficult for users to judge the authenticity of accounts and content they engage with,""

X was fined 120 million euros by European Union regulators for breaches of the bloc's digital regulations that could leave users exposed to scams and manipulation. The European Commission issued the decision after a two-year investigation under the Digital Services Act and marked the first non-compliance decision under the DSA. The DSA requires platforms to take responsibility for protecting European users and removing harmful or illegal content. Regulators identified three breaches of DSA transparency requirements, citing deceptive design practices around X's blue verification checkmarks. The platform began selling badges for about $8 per month in 2022 without meaningful verification, making account authenticity difficult to judge.

Read at Abc