The European Union brought charges against a tech business for the first time since the bloc’s new social media regulations went into force on Friday, claiming that Elon Musk’s X’s blue checkmarks are misleading and that the online platform does not meet requirements for accountability and transparency.
By the 27-nation bloc’s Digital Services Act, the European Commission presented the preliminary results of its inquiry into X, formerly known as Twitter.
Under fear of steep fines, the rulebook, also known as the DSA, is a comprehensive collection of regulations that forces platforms to assume greater responsibility for safeguarding their users in Europe and removing any harmful or unlawful items or content from their websites.
Regulators attacked X blue checks, claiming they represent “dark patterns” that violate industry best practices and give hostile actors the ability to trick consumers.
Before Musk’s acquisition, the checkmarks, which resembled social media verification badges, were mostly exclusive to prominent accounts belonging to politicians, celebrities, and other significant people.
Laptops 1000Musk acquired the website in 2022, at which point it began to distribute it to users for $8 a month.
The commission stated that it “negatively affects users’ ability to make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of the accounts and the content they interact with” because anybody can subscribe to achieve such a “verified” status.
In the past, BlueChecks were seen as reliable information sources, according to a statement by European Commissioner Thierry Breton.
“As of right now, we believe that X violates the DSA and deceives users.”
Additionally, the commission accused X of not adhering to the guidelines of ad transparency.
Platforms are required by the DSA to create a database of all the digital ads they have run, along with information on who paid for them and who the target market was.
However, the panel stated that X’s ad database is “unfit for its transparency purpose” due to “design features and access barriers” and isn’t “searchable and reliable.”
It stated that academics are hampered from examining “emerging risks” from internet marketing by the nature of the database in particular.
The committee found that the corporation does not do a good job of providing academics with access to public data.
The DSA enforces these provisions to allow researchers to closely examine platform functionality and the evolution of online hazards.
However, the procedure to obtain access from the corporation using an interface “appears to dissuade researchers” from carrying out their work or leaves them with little alternative but to pay large costs, it said.
Researchers are unable to independently access data by scraping it off the website.
X now has the opportunity to address the charges and make the necessary adjustments to comply, which would be enforceable by law.
If the commission isn’t satisfied, it has the authority to force the corporation to correct the issue and impose penalties of up to 6% of its yearly global revenue.
The investigation’s conclusions are but one aspect of it.
Authorities continue to investigate whether X is not doing enough to stop the dissemination of unlawful content, such as hate speech or incitement to terrorism, as well as the efficacy of countermeasures against “information manipulation,” particularly about its community-sourced Community Notes fact-checking feature.
DSA investigations are still ongoing against TikTok, Facebook and Instagram owner Meta Platforms, and e-commerce site AliExpress.
