The European Union’s regulatory authority announced on Friday that Elon Musk’s social media platform has breached its rules regarding advertising transparency, researcher data access, and user information updates.
The European Commission’s decision follows an investigation into whether X, previously known as Twitter before Musk’s acquisition in October 2022, violated the Digital Services Act (DSA). This law ensures that major digital platforms and their owners protect user privacy and curb the spread of harmful online content.
The commission noted that X failed to comply with rules mandating transparency in advertising, criticizing the platform for not providing a searchable ad database. In contrast, Meta’s Facebook offers users an ad library where they can search for any ads that have run in the EU over the past year and those related to political or social issues over the past seven years.
Musk’s platform has also faced criticism for restricting researchers’ access to public data. The commission highlighted Musk’s decision to place X’s application programming interface (API)—a tool providing researchers access to approximately 10 million posts monthly—behind an expensive paywall, halting at least 100 research projects.
Additionally, the commission found that X’s verification system misleads users into believing certain accounts are legitimate. After Musk’s acquisition, the company removed blue checkmarks denoting authentic and notable users, now offering these checkmarks to subscription accounts that anyone can purchase. “There is evidence of motivated malicious actors abusing the ‘verified account’ to deceive users,” the commission noted.
Thierry Breton, the EU commissioner for the internal market, stated, “Back in the day, BlueChecks used to mean trustworthy sources of information. We also consider that X’s ads repository and conditions for data access by researchers are not in line with the DSA transparency requirements.”
In response, Musk posted several remarks on X. He questioned Breton’s authenticity by asking, “How we know you’re real?” He also labeled the DSA as “misinformation” and accused the European Commission of offering X a secret deal to censor speech. Musk claimed that X looks forward to a “very public battle in court” to reveal the truth to the people of Europe.
Breton denied the existence of any secret deal, emphasizing that the DSA allows large platforms to offer commitments to settle cases and clarifying that X had requested the commission to explain its concerns and the settlement process.
These findings are preliminary, giving X an opportunity to respond. If the commission upholds its findings, X could face a fine of up to 6% of its total worldwide annual turnover and may be required to take corrective measures.
The commission has been actively scrutinizing major tech companies, accusing Apple, Microsoft, and Meta of violating the Digital Markets Act in recent months.