Elon Musk’s X on Friday became the first major online platform to be fined under the EU’s Digital Services Act.
The European Commission announced that X would be fined approximately $140 million, as well as face “periodic penalty payments” if the platform fails to improve.
One-third of the fine came from one of the first steps Musk took when taking over Twitter. In November 2022, they changed the platform’s historical use of blue checkmarks to verify the identities of notable users. Instead, Musk began selling blue checks for about $8 a month, which immediately led to a flood of fraudulent accounts pretending to be notable celebrities, executives, and brands.
Today, X still prominently advertises that paying for a check is the only way to “verify” an account on the platform. But the commission, which has been investigating X since 2023, concluded that “X’s use of ‘blue checkmarks’ for ‘verified accounts’ deceives users.”
This violates the DSA because “fraud exposes users to scams, including impersonation fraud, as well as other forms of manipulation by malicious actors,” the Commission wrote.
Interestingly, the Commission concluded that Perhaps validating the EU’s concerns,
Although the DSA does not mandate verification of users, “it clearly prohibits online platforms from falsely claiming that users have been verified when no such verification took place,” the Commission said. X now has 60 days to share information on the measures it will take to correct the compliance issue.
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