Elon Musk’s social media platform X, formerly Twitter, has been fined €120m (£105m) by the European Commission after breaching the Digital Services Act (DSA). The commission cited deceptive practices allowing anyone to buy a blue checkmark, making it difficult for users to judge account authenticity. X also failed transparency requirements for its ad database and did not provide adequate access for researchers, leaving users vulnerable to scams and manipulation.
Henna Virkkunen, EU executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, said, “Deceiving users with blue checkmarks, obscuring information on ads and shutting out researchers have no place online in the EU.” X now has 60 working days to address the blue checkmark issue and 90 days to comply with the other two breaches. The EU warned that periodic penalty payments could be imposed if the platform fails to meet its obligations.