Paid green check mark on social network X misleads users and is exploited by bad actors, the European Union said today, threatening the Elon Musk-owned platform with millions of dollars in fines if it does not make changes.
Allowing any account to pay for verification would violate EU law Digital Services Act (DSA), European Commission officials said Friday, because it “negatively affects users’ ability to make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of accounts.” X now has a chance to respond to the findings. If Musk fails to reach a resolution with the EU, the company faces a fine of up to 6 percent of its annual global revenue.
The blue checkmark, which appears next to X Premium subscribers’ account names, has been a source of controversy since Musk acquired the platform. in 2022. “Previously, the blue tick used to mean a trustworthy source of information. Now with X, our preliminary view is that they mislead users and violate the DSA,” said EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton speak in a statement. “X now has the right to defend itself—but if our views are confirmed, we will impose fines and require significant changes.”
X did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment. But about X, CEO Linda Yaccarino counterattack. “A democratized system, allowing everyone across Europe access to verification, is better than verifying only a privileged few,” she said. speak. “We support people across X and in Europe to believe in open information flow and support innovation.”
Before Musk took over X, formerly known as Twitter, the blue checkmark was used to verify the identities of influential accounts, from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to celebrity Kim Kardashian. Approved by Twitter employees, the blue checkmark was also popular among active researchers and journalists, signaling that they were trustworthy sources of information.
Proponents of that system say it helps users identify trustworthy voices while also cutting down on scammers and impersonators. But Musk has criticized the arrangement as elitist and “corruption to the root.” The ability to buy a blue tick for $8 a month, he said, is an antidote to Twitter’s current “lord-and-peasant” setup. “Power to the people!” he said. postedwhen he announced the new subscription model.
But after a series of the scandals—NBA star LeBron James is among celebrities paid by impersonating accounts to get green checks—X has introduced a more complex color-coded system that Musk described as “painful but necessary.” Verified companies can receive yellow checks, gray checks go to the government, and by April 2024, users will be able to see “have influence” has been restored to its free green tick.
Despite those changes, the EU said on Friday that X’s verification system was inconsistent with industry practices. Officials also said X failed to comply with local rules on advertising transparency and failed to provide researchers with full access to its public data, using methods like scraping. Access to X’s API costs—enterprise plans start at $42,000 a month—or preventing researchers from carrying out projects or forcing them to pay unusually high fees, the Commission said. “In our view, X does not comply with the DSA in important areas of transparency,” EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager said. in a post on Xand added that this is the first time a company has been charged with “preliminary discovery” under the Digital Services Act.
The reprimand against X is the latest in a series of sentences handed down by the Commission to big tech companies, as European regulators take advantage of new rules designed to curb the market power of tech giants and improve the way they operate. The EU has not set a deadline for X to respond to its findings.
During the past month, Apple, MicrosoftAnd Metadata are both accused of violating EU rules. Meta and Apple must resolve their cases by March 2025 to avoid fines. Yesterday, Apple said it would create its Tap and Go wallet technology available to competitors in its latest concession to local regulatory demands.
