Elon Musk's X faces fine under EU Digital Services Act

On Friday, December 5, 2025, Elon Musk's X was fined under the EU's

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_2934

X gets $140 million EU fine for breaching content rules but TikTok settles | Reuters
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/eu-fines-x-140-mln-breaching-online-content-rules-tiktok-settles-with-2025-12-05/

Elon Musk's X first to be refined under EU's Digital Services Act - Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/12/elon-musks-x-first-to-be-fined-under-eus-digital-service-act/

The European Commission, the EU's policy enforcement body, has announced that it will impose a fine of approximately 120 million euros (approximately 22 billion yen) on X for violating its transparency obligations under the Digital Services Act. The Commission cited X's 'deceptive design of its checkmarks,' 'lack of transparency in its advertising repository,' and 'failure to provide researchers with access to public data' as violations of the Digital Services Act.

The details of the fines are as follows:

◆Deceptive design of the blue check mark
The European Commission said X's use of the 'blue tick' for 'verified accounts' is a misleading practice, violating the Digital Services Act, which prohibits online platforms from engaging in deceptive design practices on their services.

X allows anyone to pay a fee to gain 'verified' status without any substantial verification of who is behind the account, making it difficult for users to determine the authenticity of accounts and content, the Commission noted. Such deceptive practices expose users to fraud such as identity theft and other forms of malicious activity by bad actors, the Commission explained. While the Digital Services Act does not mandate user verification, it does explicitly prohibit online platforms from falsely claiming that users are verified when in fact they are not.

Lack of transparency in advertising repositories
X's advertising repository fails to meet the transparency and accessibility requirements of the Digital Services Act. Accessible and searchable advertising repositories are essential for researchers and civil society to detect fraud, hybrid threat campaigns, coordinated information manipulation, and false advertising.

The Commission noted that X has design flaws and access barriers that undermine the purpose of an advertising repository, such as excessive processing delays. Additionally, X's advertising repository lacks important information, such as the content and topics of the ads and the legal entities that pay for them, making it difficult for researchers and the public to independently assess the potential risks of online advertising.

◆Inadequate provision of access to public data to researchers
X has not fulfilled its Digital Services Act obligation to 'provide researchers with access to the platform's public data.' For example, X's terms of use prohibit qualified researchers from independently accessing public data through methods including scraping. Furthermore, the Commission noted that X's process for researchers' access to public data creates unnecessary barriers, effectively hindering research into several

X will have 60 working days to take concrete steps and notify the European Commission to end the violation of Article 25 of the Digital Services Act related to the deceptive use of the blue tick mark, and will also be required to submit to the European Commission within 90 working days an action plan setting out the measures required to address violations of Articles 39 and 40 of the Digital Services Act regarding advertising repositories and researchers' access to public data.

Technology media Ars Technica points out that the Trump administration is likely to try to intervene in the EU's fine against X. Meanwhile, European Commission technology chief Henna Virkkunen seems confident that the fine won't be considered inappropriate censorship, stressing that it is 'reasonable and calculated' and 'modest.'

・Continued
X freezes European Commission PR account in retaliation for being fined by EU for violating Digital Services Act - GIGAZINE