Social media giant X has been hit with a 120 million euro ($140 million) tremendous by the European Commission for breaching transparency obligations, in the most recent challenge to a U.S. big tech company by the bloc.
The Commission on Friday said breaches include “the deceptive design of its ‘blue checkmark’, the dearth of transparency of its promoting repository, and the failure to offer access to public data for researchers.”
The ruling follows a two-year investigation under the Digital Services Act (DSA), which was adopted in 2022 to control online platforms. The Commission said that failure to comply with the choice may result in penalty payments.
“Deceiving users with blue checkmarks, obscuring information on ads and shutting out researchers don’t have any place online within the EU,” said Henna Virkkunen, executive vp for tech sovereignty, security and democracy.
“With the DSA’s first non-compliance decision, we’re holding X chargeable for undermining users’ rights and evading accountability.”
X has been approached for comment.
Musk’s social network now has 60 days to inform the Commission the way it plans to deal with the problems with “deceptive” blue checkmarks, and 90 days to submit a plan to resolve the problems with its ads repository, and access to its public data for researchers.
“Failure to comply with the non-compliance decision may result in periodic penalty payments,” the Commission said in an announcement.
The tremendous comes a day after the commission announced it might investigate whether Meta breached antitrust rules around a brand new policy on allowing AI providers’ access to WhatsApp.
In recent months, the US has been pressuring Europe to melt, or abandon, its rules for giant tech corporations, including the Digital Services Act, Digital Markets Act and other AI regulations which can be into consideration.
