The European Commission has imposed a €120 million (about $140 million) fine on Elon Musk’s social platform X, ruling that the company breached transparency obligations under the Digital Services Act (DSA). This ruling represents the first formal non-compliance decision issued under the DSA framework.
According to the Commission, X’s design choices and practices undermined users’ ability to assess authenticity and access important platform data. Key findings cited deceptive presentation of the paid “blue” verification badge, serious shortcomings in the advertising transparency repository, and the platform’s failure to provide researchers with required public data.
Regulators warned that allowing anyone to pay for verified status without meaningful identity checks increases the risk of impersonation scams and other manipulative behavior.
The Commission has been probing X for nearly two years and will continue parallel inquiries into the site’s role in spreading illegal content and the effectiveness of measures to counter information manipulation. Preliminary conclusions were issued in July 2024, forming the basis for the current sanction.
X now faces specific compliance deadlines: 60 working days to submit remediation plans addressing the blue-check issue and 90 working days to outline fixes for advertising transparency and researcher access. Once X files its plans, the EU’s Board of Digital Services will review and provide an opinion within one month, followed by a final decision and an implementation schedule within another month. Failure to meet the Commission’s directives could trigger recurring penalty payments.
The Commission said the penalty reflects the severity, scope and duration of the infringements and their impact on European users. X did not immediately provide a comment to Quartz regarding the fine.
Leave a comment