X (formerly Twitter) has been informed that it is breaching the Digital Services Act (DSA) in areas including links to dark patterns, advertising transparency and data access for researchers.

The EU Commission issued its preliminary view, based on an in-depth investigation including analysis of internal company documents, interviews with experts, and co-operation with national Digital Services Coordinators. It found that X breached the DSA over:

• Its designs and interface for verified “Blue checkmark” accounts do not align with industry best practice. Anyone can pay for “verified” status, which is deceptive for users. ”There is evidence of motivated malicious actors abusing the “verified account” to deceive users,” the EU Commission said.
• Failing to comply with the required transparency on advertising by not providing a searchable and reliable advertisement repository. Instead, X was found to be implementing place design features and access barriers which made the repository unsuitable for its transparency purpose.
• Failing to provide researches access to its public data. X’s process to allow eligible researchers access to its application programming interface (API) was also found to “dissuade researchers from carrying out their research projects or leave them with no other choice than to pay disproportionally high fees.”

Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President for a Europe Fit for the Digital Age, said that this was the first time preliminary findings have been issued under the Digital Services Act.

“X has now the right of defence – but if our view is confirmed we will impose fines and require significant changes.”

Thierry Breton, Commissioner for Internal Market

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

X could face fines for breaching DSA

The EU Commission has informed X of its preliminary findings of breaching the DSA, which X now will be able to examine and reply to. The European Board for Digital Services will be consulted in the matter.

If the EU Commission’s preliminary views are confirmed, X will be found to have breached DSA Articles 25, 39 and 40(12), which could entail fines of up to 6% of the company’s total worldwide annual turnover. X could also be ordered to address the breach and/or carry out an enhanced supervision period to make sure that it has taken measures to remedy the breach.

“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,” said Thierry Breton, Commissioner for Internal Market. “X has now the right of defence – but if our view is confirmed we will impose fines and require significant changes.”