EU Fines X 120 Mln Euros For Breaching Transparency Obligations Under DSA

(RTTNews) - The European Commission on Friday has issued a fine of 120 million euros to Elon Musk's social media platform X for breaching its transparency obligations under the Digital Services Act (DSA).

The breaches include the deceptive design of its 'blue checkmark', the lack of transparency of its advertising repository, and the failure to provide access to public data for researchers.

The Commission had in December 2023 opened formal proceedings to assess whether X may have breached the DSA in areas linked to the dissemination of illegal content and the effectiveness of the measures taken to combat information manipulation, for which the investigation continues.

The proceedings also covered X's use of deceptive design, the lack of advertising transparency and insufficient data access for researchers.

According to the Commission, X's use of the 'blue checkmark' for 'verified accounts' deceives users and violates the DSA obligation for online platforms to prohibit deceptive design practices on their services.

X's advertisement repository also fails to meet the transparency and accessibility requirements of the DSA. X incorporates design features and access barriers, such as excessive delays in processing, which undermine the purpose of ad repositories. Accessible and searchable ad repositories are critical for researchers and civil society.

Further, X fails to meet its DSA obligations to provide researchers with access to the platform's public data, including through scraping. It imposes unnecessary barriers, effectively undermining research into several systemic risks in the EU.

X now has 60 working days to inform the Commission of the specific measures it intends to take to bring to an end the infringement of Article 25 (1) DSA, related to the deceptive use of blue checkmarks.

X has 90 working days to submit to the Commission an action plan setting out the necessary measures to address the infringements of Articles 39 and 40(12) DSA, relating to the advertising repository and to the access to public data for researchers.

The Board of Digital Services will have one month from receipt of X's action plan to give its opinion, with the Commission having another month to give its final decision and set a reasonable implementation period.

The Commission stated that failure to comply with the non-compliance decision may lead to periodic penalty payments. This is the first non-compliance decision under the DSA.

The Commission added that the fine issued was calculated taking into account the nature of these infringements, their gravity in terms of affected EU users, and their duration. It continues to engage with X to ensure compliance with the decision and with the DSA more generally.