Elon Musk says he will fight charges of violating the European Digital Services Act. Musk during a visit to the tech startup and innovation fair VivaTech in Paris on June 16, 2023, and the new Twitter logo, rebranded as an “X” (right), is displayed on a screen in Paris on July 24, 2023.
Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty Images
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Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty Images
The European Union on Friday filed its first complaint under a new social media law, accusing Elon Musk’s X of breaching regulations by misleading users and failing to meet transparency requirements.
European regulators say Musk made the once-coveted badge available for anyone to buy when he relaunched Twitter’s blue-tick “verification” system after buying the company in late 2022. As a result, Twitter has become inundated with fake accounts, impersonators and a flood of misleading information.
“This has a negative impact on users’ ability to make free and informed judgments about the veracity of the accounts and content they interact with,” the commission wrote. The findings“There is evidence that malicious actors are abusing ‘verified accounts’ to deceive users.”
In the US, the chaos and confusion that followed Musk’s change of blue tick mark has drawn criticism from misinformation researchers.
European Union officials argue that the new blue check system violates the law, specifically a regulation called the Digital Services Act (DSA), which requires major social media companies to actively police harmful content and faces fines for non-compliance.
In addition to the blue check, European authorities have also fined Musk for other violations.
Under the new law, Company X will have to publish a database of all the digital ads it runs, including details about who funded each one and who they target.
But EU investigators said X’s advertising database was not “searchable and trustworthy”, making it difficult for researchers to study “emerging risks” such as ads that convey harmful messages or target vulnerable groups.
Musk will have the opportunity to defend Company X against the charges and propose measures to address the EU’s concerns, but if Musk refuses to resolve the issues, Company X could be subject to fines of up to 6% of the company’s annual global revenue, which could easily amount to tens of millions of dollars.
“If X quietly censors speech, without telling anyone, they won’t be fined. Other platforms accepted that deal. X didn’t,” Musk wrote about X, vowing to fight it in court.
The charges against X are the result of a months-long investigation into the company. About two years ago, a senior European Commission official He told NPR Musk faces heavy fines if he ignores the EU’s new digital services regulations.
Another investigation underway by European authorities is looking into whether X has done enough to combat disinformation and illegal hate speech. European authorities said on Friday that the investigation is still ongoing.
Other major social media platforms, including TikTok, Facebook and Instagram-owner Meta, are also under investigation for possible violations of the DSA, but neither company has yet been formally charged by the EU.
