EU Commission Says X’s Paid Blue Checkmarks “Deceive Users”

X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter is not compliant with the EU’s Digital Services Act, the EU Commission said today. The EU regulator started investigating possible DSA violations from X back in 2023, and it said in its preliminary findings today that the company making blue checkmarks a paid feature “deceives users.” The Commission added that X’s ads repository and conditions for data access by researchers are also not compliant with the DSA.

Not to be confused with the EU’s Digital Markets Act, the Digital Services Act includes specific rules for large online platforms with more than 45 million monthly users in the EU. These rules are designed to prevent the spread of disinformation and reduce the distribution of illegal and harmful content online.

Back in April 2023, the EU Commission included Twitter/X in its list of 17 “very large online platforms” that need to be regulated, which also includes Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube. To comply with the DSA, these platforms had to make some changes to protect users online, assess and mitigate their systemic risks, and improve access to data for researchers. Companies that fail to comply with the DSA risk fines up to 6% of their annual global turnover in the previous year.

“Today we issue for the first time preliminary findings under the Digital Services Act,” said Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President for a Europe Fit for the Digital Age. “In our view, X does not comply with the DSA in key transparency areas, by using dark patterns and thus misleading users, by failing to provide an adequate ad repository, and by blocking access to data for researchers.”

One of Elon Musk’s first big changes after taking over Twitter in October 2022 was to make blue verified checkmarks a paid feature. This was first made available through the existing Twitter Blue subscription, which has now been rebranded to X Premium.

From the beginning, Twitter/X users abused the new system to impersonate other people, with the paid blue checkmark making it easy to make any account look “official.” It also doesn’t help that accounts with the blue checkmark get a visibility boost in replies.

“Since anyone can subscribe to obtain such a “verified” status, it negatively affects users’ ability to make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of the accounts and the content they interact with,” the EU Commission said in its press release. “There is evidence of motivated malicious actors abusing the “verified account” to deceive users.”

In its preliminary findings, the EU Commission also said that X “does not provide a searchable and reliable advertisement repository,” adding that the company also prohibits researchers from accessing its public data. While X has the opportunity to respond to the Commission’s findings, Elon Musk alleged today that what the EU regulator has been trying to do is push X to censor free speech.

“The European Commission offered ? an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us,” Musked posted on X. “The other platforms accepted that deal. ? did not.”

As usual, it good to take anything Musk says with a grain of salt. However, Margrethe Vestager said today that “we are determined to ensure that all platforms, including X, comply with EU legislation.” The EU Commission is also investigating possible DSA violations from TikTok, AliExpress, and Meta.