Elon Musk’s X faces big EU fines as paid checkmarks are ruled deceptive

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Elon Musk's overhaul of the Twitter verification system deceives users and violates the Digital Services Act, the European Commission said today in an announcement of preliminary findings that could lead to a big financial penalty.

The social media platform now called X "designs and operates its interface for the 'verified accounts' with the 'Blue checkmark' in a way that does not correspond to industry practice and deceives users," the EU regulator said. "Since anyone can subscribe to obtain such a 'verified' status, it negatively affects users' ability to make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of the accounts and the content they interact with. There is evidence of motivated malicious actors abusing the 'verified account' to deceive users."

Blue checkmarks "used to mean trustworthy sources of information," Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton said. The EC said it "informed X of its preliminary view that it is in breach of the Digital Services Act (DSA) in areas linked to dark patterns, advertising transparency and data access for researchers."