The European Union’s regulatory body announced on Friday that Elon Musk’s social media platform has breached its rules concerning advertising transparency, data access for researchers, and user information.
The move follows an investigation by the European Commission into whether X—formerly known as Twitter before Musk’s acquisition in October 2022—violated the Digital Services Act (DSA). This law mandates that major digital platforms safeguard user privacy and limit the spread of harmful content online.
The commission stated that X failed to comply with its advertising transparency rules, specifically for not offering a searchable advertisement database. Unlike Meta’s Facebook, which maintains an ad library searchable by users, X lacks such a feature.
Furthermore, the commission criticized Musk’s platform for restricting researchers’ access to public data. Musk had placed X’s application programming interface—allowing researchers access to around 10 million posts monthly—behind an expensive paywall, halting over 100 research projects.
The commission also took issue with X’s verification system. The platform’s move from using blue checkmarks for notable users to using them for subscription accounts has misled users into believing certain accounts are legitimate. “There is evidence of motivated malicious actors abusing the ‘verified account’ to deceive users,” the commission stated.
Thierry Breton, the E.U. commissioner for the internal market, highlighted the issue on Friday. “BlueChecks used to mean trustworthy sources of information,” Breton said. He added that X’s ads repository and data access conditions for researchers do not meet DSA transparency requirements.
In response, Musk criticized the decision, questioning the authenticity of Breton’s blue checkmark and labeling the DSA itself as “misinformation.” He suggested that the European Commission proposed a “secret deal” for censoring speech, which Musk claimed other platforms accepted. Breton countered, asserting that no secret deals were made and that the DSA only allows platforms to offer commitments to resolve cases.
X has the opportunity to respond to these preliminary findings, and if the commission’s decision is affirmed, the platform may face fines of up to 6% of its total annual global revenue and be required to take corrective measures.
The European Commission has been increasingly active in regulating tech giants, also targeting Apple, Microsoft, and Meta for alleged violations of the Digital Markets Act.