With more and more social media platforms today introducing verification methods to certify the identity of brands and online personalities, you’d think that this would help in keeping online spaces a bit more less deceptive. As it turns out however, this doesn’t seem to be the case with X, aka the platform formerly known as Twitter.
The European Commission today announced a €120 million fine against X for significant breaches of its transparency obligations under the Digital Services Act (DSA), marking the first non-compliance decision under the DSA. A primary reason for the fine is X’s deceptive use of the “blue checkmark” for so-called verified accounts.
The European Commission found that X allows anyone to pay for this status without meaningfully verifying the person behind the account, which then violates the DSA requirement to prohibit deceptive design and makes it difficult for users to determine the authenticity of accounts and content. X falsely implies that users have been verified when no such process occurred.
The fine also addresses other major breaches relating to platform transparency and researcher access, as X’s ad repository fails to meet the DSA’s transparency and accessibility standards such as essential information regarding the content and topic of ads and the legal entity paying for it, hindering independent scrutiny of online advertising risks.
The commission says that X now has 60 working days to inform the Commission of the specific measures it will take to stop the use of the blue checkmark. The company also has 90 working days to submit an action plan detailing the necessary measures to fix the infringements related to the advertising repository and researcher data access.
This ruling follows formal proceedings which initially began on December 18, 2023.
