Elon Musk's X platform in breach of EU rules

Brussels: Preliminary findings from the European Commission on Friday said tech billionaire Elon Musk's X (formerly Twitter) social media platform was in breach of EU digital content rules.

"Today, the Commission has informed X of its preliminary view that it is in breach of the Digital Services Act (DSA) in areas linked to dark patterns, advertising transparency and data access for researchers," the European Commission said in a statement.

In three key findings highlighted by the Commission, EU regulators were unhappy with the X blue badge system that, under Musk's ownership of X, has meant anyone can now obtain it with a premium subscription.

The Commission said that interface for verified accounts and the "Blue checkmark" was done in  a way "that does not correspond to industry practice and deceives users."

"Back in the day, BlueChecks used to mean trustworthy sources of information," European Commissioner Thierry Breton said in a statement. "Now with X, our preliminary view is that they deceive users and infringe the DSA."

Secondly, the Commission said that X was not in compliance with "required transparency on advertising" and did not provide "a searchable and reliable advertisement repository."

In the third preliminary finding, the Commission said that X "fails to provide access to its public data to researchers" which it said need to be in line with the DSA.
"In particular, X prohibits eligible researchers from independently accessing its public data, such as by scraping, as stated in its terms of service," the Commission said.

The Commission statement said that X would now have the opportunity to exercise its right of defense by examining the documents in the investigation file and could respond in writing.

The statement added that if the preliminary findings were ultimaintely confirmed, a "non-compliance decision" would be adopted that X is in breach of the Digital Services Act and could be fined up to 6% of its worldwide turnover.