X hit with $140 million fine from the EU

The European Commission has fined Elon Musk’s X €120 million (around $140 million) for breaching its transparency rules under the Digital Services Act. The European Union’s executive arm announced that it was investigating the social media company’s blue checkmarking verification system — first introduced when it was still known as Twitter — last year, along with other alleged DSA violations. Today’s verdict concerns the "deceptive design" of the checkmark, as well as "the lack of transparency of [X's] advertising repository, and the failure to provide access to public data for researchers."

The Commission's issue with X’s verification system is that where blue checkmarks were once something that Twitter that Twitter vetted, they can now be bough by anyone. According to the EU, this puts users at risk of scams and impersonation fraud, as they can’t tell if the accounts they ...