Elon Musk’s social media platform X, formerly Twitter, has been fined \u20ac120m (\u00a3105m) by the EU after it found rule breaches had left users vulnerable to scams and manipulation.<\/p>\n
The European Commission started investigating\u00a0X<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0under the Digital Services Act (DSA) two years ago and has now issued its first non-compliance decision against the site.<\/p>\n In a decision that could anger the US President Donald Trump the commission censured\u00a0Elon Musk’s<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0platform for three different breaches of DSA transparency requirements.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The\u00a0Trump<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0administration has previously criticised Brussels’ digital regulations, saying that they target US tech companies and had vowed to retaliate.<\/p>\n One of X’s breaches highlighted by the EU concerned the “deceptive design practices” of the platform’s blue checkmarks, which exposed users to scams and manipulation, regulators said.<\/p>\n Before Mr Musk acquired the site for $44bn (\u00a333bn) in 2022, the checkmarks indicated the accounts of notable users with verified identities.<\/p>\n Under the tech billionaire’s changes, however, the badge could be bought by anyone willing to pay $8 (\u00a36) a month.<\/p>\n The commission said, it was therefore “difficult for users to judge the authenticity of accounts and content they engage with”.<\/p>\n X also fell short of transparency requirements for its database of advertisements, regulators said.<\/p>\n In the EU, platforms are required to provide a database of all the digital ads they have carried, with details such as who paid for them and the intended audience.<\/p>\n But the commission said X had created “access barriers” to its database, which lacked “critical information” and imposed “excessive delays in processing, which undermine the purpose of ad repositories”.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It also found X had failed to meet its DSA obligations to provide researchers with its public data, the commission said.<\/p>\n The EU’s executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy, Henna Virkkunen, said: “Deceiving users with blue checkmarks, obscuring information on ads and shutting out researchers have no place online in the EU.<\/p>\n “The DSA protects users. The DSA gives researchers the way to uncover potential threats. The DSA restores trust in the online environment.<\/p>\n “With the DSA’s first non-compliance decision, we are holding X responsible for undermining users’ rights and evading accountability.”<\/p>\n X now has 60 working days to inform the commission of how it will bring its blue checkmarks into compliance, and 90 days to address the other two breaches.<\/p>\n The commission says it can impose “periodic penalty payments” on Musk’s platform if it fails to comply.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Source: \u00a0![\"Elon](\"https:\/\/e3.365dm.com\/25\/06\/768x432\/skynews-elon-musk-donald-trump_6936588.jpg?20250607191420\")
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