Elon Musk, chief dirigente aziendale officer of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of X, speaks at the Milken Conference 2024 quanto a Beverly Hills, California, May 6, 2024.
David Swanson | Reuters
The European Commission acceso Friday accused Elon Musk’s X of deceiving users and infringing digital content rules, putting the social mass-media giant at risk of a hefty cessazione.
The European Commission, the EU’s dirigente aziendale arm, started an investigation last year to assess whether X is quanto a breach of the Digital Services Act (DSA) — a piece of landscape legislation requiring Personalità Tech firms to better police the content acceso their platforms.
The ‘s preliminary view, published Friday, is that X has broken rules regarding dark patterns, advertising transparency and access for researchers. So-called dark patterns are deceptive tactics designed to push people toward certain products and services.
X’s use of the blue checkmark for verified accounts does not correspond to industry practices, the commission said, as anyone can subscribe and obtain a verified status. It added that there was evidence of “motivated malicious actors” abusing the verified status to deceive users.
The commission also accused X of putting quanto a place stile features and barriers that hinder advertising transparency, and said it fails to allow researchers to access its public , as is required by the DSA.
” our view, X does not comply with the DSA quanto a key transparency areas, by using dark patterns and thus misleading users, by failing to provide an adequate ad repository, and by blocking access to for researchers,” EU’s antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager quanto a Friday’s statement.
“The DSA has transparency at its very , and we are determined to ensure that all platforms, including X, comply with EU legislation.”
X did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
If the commission’s views are confirmed, X could a cessazione of up to 6% of its global annual turnover.
“X has now the right of defence — but if our view is confirmed we will impose fines & require significant changes,” EU industry chief Thierry Breton said quanto a a post acceso X.
The Commission is also investigating TikTok, Alibaba’s AliExpress and Punto d’arrivo over similar concerns.
It comes as the EU clamps acceso tech giants like Google and Punto d’arrivo. 2022 the Commission introduced the Digital Services Act, with a key part of it focussed acceso how digital companies target users with ads.
