European Commission Finds X Misleads Users, In Breach Of DSA

The European Commission has warned X that it’s reached the preliminary view that the company is in breach of the Digital Services Act.

As with the Commission’s recent preliminary ruling against Apple under the DSA, the decision is based on X’s designation as a Very Large Online Platform, which have greater constraints and responsibilities than other tech firms.

And following a lengthy investigation that included an analysis of internal company documents, interviews with experts and cooperation with national Digital Services Coordinators, the Commission says that X is failing to abide by rules covering the use of dark patterns, advertising transparency and data access.

“Today we issue for the first time preliminary findings under the Digital Services Act. In our view, X does not comply with the DSA in key transparency areas, by using dark patterns and thus misleading users, by failing to provide an adequate ad repository, and by blocking access to data for researchers,” says Margrethe Vestager, executive vice-president for a Europe fit for the digital age.

“The DSA has transparency at its very core, and we are determined to ensure that all platforms, including X, comply with EU legislation.”

First, says the Commission, X designs and operates its interface for verified accounts with the blue checkmark in an unconventional way that deceives users, by allowing anyone to subscribe and get verified status. This, it says, makes it harder for users to know whether accounts and their content are authentic – and, indeed, there’s evidence that the system has been abused.

Second, the company’s failing to comply with the required transparency on advertising, as it doesn’t provide a searchable and reliable advertisement repository. Instead, says the Commission, it uses design features and barriers to access that inhibit transparency, particularly when it comes to the risks from the distribution of advertising online.

Finally, it says, X fails to provide access to its public data to researchers as it should, barring eligible researchers from independently accessing its public data, for example by scraping, despite promising to do so in its terms of service.

On top of this, the process the company uses to grant eligible researchers access to its application programming interface may put researchers off carrying out their research projects, or leave them with no other choice than to pay overly-high fees.

“Back in the day, blue checks used to mean trustworthy sources of information. Now with X, our preliminary view is that they deceive users and infringe the DSA,” says commissioner for internal market Thierry Breton.

“We also consider that X’s ads repository and conditions for data access by researchers are not in line with the DSA transparency requirements. X has now the right of defense—but if our view is confirmed we will impose fines and require significant changes.”

And those fines could be considerable—up to 6% of total worldwide annual turnover. However, X now gets the chance to examine the documents in the Commission’s investigation file and present its defense.

This is just the latest action against VLOPs from the Commission under the DSA: it also opened formal proceedings against TikTok in February and April 2024, AliExpress in March 2024, and Meta in April and May 2024.

X has been approached for comment but, as usual, has declined.