The EU Charges X Over Its Broken Trust Signals

The European Commission's preliminary findings say the paid “verified” blue checkmarks on X deceive users and breach European Union law. If the finding is confirmed, the platform faces fines of up to 6 percent of its worldwide annual turnover.

On July 12, 2024, the European Commission notified X of preliminary findings that the platform had breached the Digital Services Act, the European Union's landmark rulebook for very large online platforms. Among the alleged violations, the Commission said the company's design of its paid “verified” accounts misleads users about who they are dealing with online.

The blue checkmark, once assigned by the platform to notable public figures and institutions it had authenticated, became a paid subscription feature after Elon Musk acquired the company in 2022. The Commission's preliminary view is that X now “designs and operates its interface for the ‘verified accounts’ with the ‘Blue checkmark’ in a way that does not correspond to industry practice and deceives users,” according to the Commission. Because anyone can subscribe to obtain the status, the regulator said, it undermines users' ability to judge the authenticity of accounts and the content they interact with.

Three alleged breaches

The preliminary findings set out three areas of concern, the Commission said. Beyond the checkmark, it found that X fails to provide a searchable and reliable advertisement repository, instead using “design features and access barriers” that hinder transparency, and that the platform blocks eligible researchers from independently accessing its public data or imposes disproportionately high fees for access, according to Forbes.

“Back in the day, BlueChecks used to mean trustworthy sources of information,” Thierry Breton, then the European commissioner for the internal market, said. “Now with X, our preliminary view is that they deceive users and infringe the DSA,” he added, in remarks reported by Euronews.

How the case reached this point

The action was the culmination of an inquiry the Commission had opened months earlier. On December 18, 2023, the regulator began formal proceedings against X to assess suspected breaches in areas including risk management, content moderation, dark patterns, advertising transparency and data access for researchers, according to the European Commission. The step marked the first formal enforcement proceedings the Commission had launched under the Digital Services Act.

Musk rejected the findings and alleged that the Commission had offered the company a quiet settlement in exchange for censoring content, a claim Breton denied. “There has never been — and will never be — any ‘secret deal’ with anyone,” Breton wrote, according to Euronews.

What is at stake

The findings were preliminary, and X was given the opportunity to examine the Commission's file and respond in writing before any decision. Should the regulator confirm the breach, the Digital Services Act allows fines of up to 6 percent of a company's total worldwide annual turnover, according to the Commission. Regulators frame verification labels as a question of public trust: when a signal that once denoted an authenticated source can be bought, researchers and officials warn, it becomes harder for users to tell reliable information from impersonation and manipulation.