Preliminary findings from the European Commission on Friday said tech billionaire Elon Musk's X (formerly Twitter) social media platform was in breach of EU digital content rules.

"Today, the Commission has informed X of its preliminary view that it is in breach of the Digital Services Act (DSA) in areas linked to dark patterns, advertising transparency and data access for researchers," the European Commission said in a statement.

Twitter owner Elon Musk, meanwhile, responded by saying the EU had tried to pressure the company into "illegal" censorship of its users.

"The European Commission offered X an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us," Musk wrote. "The other platforms accepted that deal. X did not." 

Preliminary findings

In three key findgings highlighted by the Commission, EU regulators were unhappy with the X blue badge system that, under Musk's ownership of X, has meant anyone can now obtain it with a premium subscription. 

The Commission said the interface for verified accounts and the "Blue checkmark" was done in  a way "that does not correspond to industry practice and deceives users."

"Back in the day, Blue Checks used to mean trustworthy sources of information," European Commissioner Thierry Breton said in a statement. "Now with X, our preliminary view is that they deceive users and infringe the DSA."

Secondly, the Commission said that X was not in compliance with "required transparency on advertising" and did not provide "a searchable and reliable advertisement repository."

In the third preliminary finding, the Commission said X "fails to provide access to its public data to researchers," which it added is required by the DSA.

"In particular, X prohibits eligible researchers from independently accessing its public data, such as by scraping, as stated in its terms of service," the Commission said.

X has opportunity to respond

The Commission statement said that X would now have the opportunity to exercise its right of defense by examining the documents in the investigation file and could respond in writing.

 

"The European Commission offered X an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without tellingg anyone, they would not fine us," Musk wrote. "The other platforms accepted that deal. X did not." 

The statement added that if the preliminary findings were ultimaintely confirmed, a "non-compliance decision" would be adopted that X was in breach of the Digital Services Act and could be fined up to 6% of its worldwide turnover.

This is the first time the Commission has published preliminary findings under the DSA and has emphasized that the result is not yet final.

Musk officially took ownership of Twitter on October 27, 2022, and shortly thereafter fired top executives, made a series of controversial layoffs (about half of its 7,500 staff) and rebranded one of the world's best-known brands to X.

kb/sms (dpa, AFP, Reuters)