The EU Commission has fined X over its "deceptive" blue-check badge system
The European Commission has insisted Elon Musk’s X will have to pay a €120 (£105) million fine for violating EU transparency rules.
The Commission has called Musk’s blue-check badge system ‘deceptive’ and noted that paid verification makes users more vulnerable to counterfeits and fraud.
The Commission issued the penalty for breaches of transparency and deceptive design obligations under the EU’s Digital Services Act on Friday.
X was also fined for a lack of transparency around its advertising practices. Under the Act, platforms must have a public and searchable ad repository to allow anyone to see what ads have run and who funded them.
The EU Commission also found X is limiting researchers from accessing data that should be publicly available.
The US government, Musk and his allies have claimed that this is “censorship” and an “attack on freedom of speech”, with some suggesting the world’s richest man should not pay the fine.
Musk himself threatened to take action against the EU and other “individuals” on Saturday.
However, Thomas Regnier, a Commission spokesperson told journalists: “X will have to pay that fine. The €120 million will have to be paid. We will make sure that we get this money”.
The company now has to pay the fine and has 90 days to respond to the EU Commission.
Veronika Cifrová Ostrihoňová, MEP for the Progressive Slovakia party, wrote on X: “Historic first fine under the #DSA — and a clear signal to Big Tech: in Europe, rules apply to everyone, even billionaires.
“If oligarchs such as Elon Musk think this is “censorship”, they might want to learn how European democracy works. And what does it actually mean the freedom of speech.”
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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