Paid blue checks on social networking site X are defrauding users and being misused by malicious actors, the European Union said today, threatening Elon Musk’s platform with millions of dollars in fines if the company does not make changes.
Allowing any account to pay for verification violates the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), European Commission officials said on Friday, because it “negatively impacts users’ ability to make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of their accounts.” X now has a chance to respond to the findings. If Musk fails to reach an agreement with the EU, the company could face fines of up to 6 percent of its global annual turnover.
The blue checks that appear next to the names of X Premium subscribers’ accounts have been the subject of controversy since Musk took over the platform in 2022. “In the past, blue checks marked trustworthy sources of information. Now, in the case of X, our preliminary view is that they are deceiving users and violating the DSA,” said EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton. he said in a statement. “X now has the right to defend himself — but if our position is confirmed, we will impose fines and demand significant changes.”
X did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment.
Before Musk took over X, formerly known as Twitter, blue checks were used to verify the identities of influential accounts ranging from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to celebrity Kim Kardashian. Approved by Twitter employees, blue checks were also common among dynamic researchers and journalists, signaling that they were credible sources of information.
Supporters of the system have argued that it helps users identify trustworthy voices while limiting fraudsters and impersonators. However, Musk has condemned the solution as elitist and “corrupt to the core.” The ability to buy a blue tick for $8 a month, he said, was an antidote to “the current lords and peasants of Twitter.” “Power to the people!” publishedannouncing a novel subscriber model.
But after a series of scandals — NBA star LeBron James was one of the figures to fall victim to accounts impersonating him with paid blue checks — X introduced a more complicated color-coding system that Musk described as “painful but necessary.” Verified companies can receive gold checks, gray checks go to governments, and in April 2024, users found “influential“they had their blue checks restored for free.
Despite those changes, the EU said Friday that X’s verification system is not in line with industry practice. Officials also said X fails to comply with local advertising transparency rules and fails to provide researchers with adequate access to its public data, using methods such as scraping. X’s API access fees — corporate packages start at $42,000 per month — either discourage researchers from pursuing projects or force them to pay disproportionately high fees, the Commission said. “In our view, X fails to comply with the DSA in key areas of transparency,” EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager said. in the post on Xadding that this is the first time the company has been charged based on “preliminary findings” under the Digital Services Act.
X’s reprimand is the latest in a series of reprimands issued to big tech companies by the Commission, as European regulators seize on new rules aimed at curbing the market power of tech giants and improving the way they operate. The EU has not set a deadline for X to respond to its findings.
Last month, Apple, Microsoft and Meta were accused of breaking EU rules. Meta and Apple must resolve their cases before March 2025 to avoid fines. Yesterday, Apple said it would share its Tap and Go wallet technology with rivals in its latest concession to local regulators.