The EU Commission announced on Friday that social media platform “X” (formerly “Twitter”) breached EU guidelines under the Digital Services Act (DSA). This determination follows an investigation into X’s advertising transparency, availability of data, and risk management.
The Commission has identified three primary breaches of the DSA by X. Firstly, the Blue Check subscription feature allows any user to obtain a “verified” status, which the Commission argues “does not correspond to industry practice and deceives users.” Secondly, X’s advertising system fails to meet transparency requirements, described as “not searchable or reliable” and burdened with “access barriers.” Lastly, X restricts “eligible researchers from independently accessing its public data,” contravening DSA transparency mandates.
A preliminary investigation launched in December 2023 began formal proceedings to determine possible DSA breaches by X. Given its classification as a Very Large Online Platform (VLOP)—reaching over 45 million EU users monthly—X is subject to stringent DSA compliance requirements. Ongoing investigations are focusing on other potential violations, such as the dissemination of illegal content and efforts to combat information manipulation.
In response to these findings, Thierry Breton, Commissioner for Internal Market, remarked: “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 the opportunity to reply to the Commission’s findings and defend its practices. Should the Commission confirm its preliminary findings, X could face fines up to 6 percent of its total worldwide annual turnover and be ordered to rectify the identified breaches.
Other social media platforms are under similar scrutiny, particularly since the Israel-Hamas war, during which the EU Commission issued a formal request for X’s explanations of its compliance efforts under the DSA. Despite X’s measures to combat misinformation and illegal content, the recent findings point towards significant regulatory challenges ahead.
For further details on these developments, you can access the full article on JURIST.