The first official EU investigation based on the Digital Services Act is a fact. Social media platform X allegedly violated rules to combat disinformation and illegal content.
Two weeks earlier, the EU issued an official warning against Elon Musk’s platform. In particular, the spread of disinformation since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel seems to have spurred the EU to launch an investigation. Speaking to Bloomberg, an X spokesperson stated that the company is cooperating with EU regulators.
On Aug. 25, the Digital Services Act took effect, which required 19 social media platforms, search engines and digital marketplaces to ban illegal content and not deploy personalized advertising based on user data.
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Fine of 6 percent annual turnover or removal from EU
The EU has identified several problems. X allegedly failed to take sufficient action against disinformation and illegal content, while it also lacked transparency according to regulators. Finally, its user interface has also come under scrutiny over its supposedly misleading design, according to EU Commissioner Thierry Breton. He shared these concerns on, where else, X.
X risks having to pay a fine of up to 6 percent of annual sales. In addition, the platform may be banned within the European Union. An “X exit” would not be entirely unimaginable, as Musk is said to be frustrated with the DSA and has already considered leaving the EU over it. Previous firm direction changes have already taken place over the past year, such as Twitter’s name change to X and its abandonment of AWS cloud services in favour of on-prem.
No deadline
The European Commission is concerned about the allegedly deceptive nature of the blue-check verification system. Since the early days of Twitter, the blue checkmark indicated that a well-known individual’s account had been verified to be theirs. However, This year, X changed its policy and users can now get a blue checkmark by subscribing to X Premium.
The investigation has no deadline, so it’s unclear when we can expect an update or conclusion.
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