X fined EUR120m by EU for breaching content rules
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The news: Elon Musk’s social media platform X has been fined EUR120 million ($210.56 million) by European regulators on Friday for breaching transparency obligations under the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA).
The context: The penalty, which is the first to be handed down under the landmark DSA rules is part of Europe’s crackdown on Big Tech to protect the ability of smaller players to compete and ensure consumers have more choice.
The sanction follows a two-year-long investigation which found that X’s use of the ‘blue checkmark' for ‘verified accounts' deceives users as anyone can pay to obtain the status, making if difficult for users to judge the authenticity of accounts and content they engage with.
The Commission also found that X's advertisement repository fails to meet the transparency and accessibility requirements of the DSA as it incorporates design features and access barriers which undermine the purpose of ad repositories.
Additionally, the Commission argued that X fails to provide researchers with access to the platform's public data, effectively undermining research into several systemic risks in the European Union.
Moments before the Commission handed down its fine, President Donald Trump’s envoy to the European Union, Andrew Puzder, told Bloomberg that the bloc was unfairly targeting US tech giants with its tech rules.
“The only substantial meaningful fines that have been imposed so far have been against American companies,” Pudzer said. “So at some point, if you’re an American company, you’ve gotta sit back and say, look, am I being targeted here?[…]Or is this an effort to try and advantage European competitors over US companies? And if that’s the case, it’s something that the United States needs to respond to.”
What they said: Henna Virkkunen, executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy said: “Deceiving users with blue checkmarks, obscuring information on ads and shutting out researchers have no place online in the EU. The DSA protects users. The DSA gives researchers the way to uncover potential threats. The DSA restores trust in the online environment. With the DSA’s first non-compliance decision, we are holding X responsible for undermining users’ rights and evading accountability.”
The sources: European Commission, Bloomberg
