The European Union (EU) has imposed a significant fine on the social media platform 'X' for violating user rights and evading accountability. This decision demonstrates the EU's determination in regulating the operations of technology companies.
Redaksiya reports, citing TRT Haber, that this decision carries the risk of angering the Trump administration in the US. The US Secretary of Commerce stated last week that the EU needs to review its technology regulations to reduce steel tariffs, attempting to use this issue as leverage for trade negotiations. However, EU officials clarified that the decision is not dependent on pressure from the US and that they are protecting their "sovereign right" to regulate technology companies.
Henna Virkkunen, Vice-President of the European Commission's executive body, stated, "With the first non-compliance decision under the DSA, we are holding X accountable for harming user rights and evading accountability. Deceiving users with blue checks, hiding advertising information, and excluding researchers is unacceptable in the EU." The EU determined that X violated its transparency obligations. This fine, totaling 120 million euros, is primarily based on three main violations. A portion of the fine, 45 million euros, was levied for the deceptive "blue check" verification badge, which is sold to users for money and makes it difficult to determine the authenticity of accounts.
Elon Musk, on his way to becoming the world's first trillionaire, must respond to this fine with an "action plan" within 90 days. The company also has the right to appeal the decision by applying to the European Court of Justice, similar to other tech giants like Apple that have protested EU decisions in the past. Simultaneously, the EU announced that TikTok has also committed to providing its advertising repository to address transparency concerns. The new law requires platforms to keep their advertising repositories open to researchers to identify illegal or age-inappropriate advertisements. This decision, concluding part of the European Commission's two-year investigation, is the first fine issued against the company since the Digital Services Act (DSA) came into effect.
35 million euros resulted from the failure to fulfill the obligation to provide a publicly accessible list of advertisers, intended to protect against illegal fraud and political campaigns. The remaining 40 million euros were imposed due to shortcomings in providing public access to data that researchers need to track controversial topics, such as political content.