London. The European Union (EU) said on Friday that the 'blue tick' mark of Elon Musk's company 'X' is misleading and the company is not meeting the criteria of transparency and accountability on online platforms. This is the first allegation against a technology company since the EU's new social media regulation came into effect. The European Commission outlined preliminary findings from its investigation into X (formerly known as Twitter) under the 27-nation bloc's Digital Services Act. The rulebook, called DSA, is a comprehensive compilation of rules that require platforms to take more responsibility to protect users and secure their sites.
There is also a provision for heavy fines for not following the rules. Regulators took aim at 'X's' blue ticks, saying they constitute “dark patterns” that are not in line with industry best practices and can be used by malicious elements to deceive users. After Musk bought 'X' in the year 2022, it began issuing verification marks to anyone paying eight dollars a month. Before Musk's purchase of 'X', they were similar to the verification badges commonly used on social media and were largely reserved for celebrities, politicians and other influential accounts.
European Commissioner Thierry Breton said in a statement, “Earlier the blue tick was seen as a reliable source of information. Now our initial view of X is that they deceive users and violate the DSA.” The European Commission also accused 'X' of not following the norms of advertising transparency. Under the DSA, the platform will have to publish a database of all the digital advertisements it broadcasts, including details of who paid for them and who the target audience is. The Commission said that 'X's' advertising database has “design features and accessibility barriers” that make it “unsuitable for transparency purposes.” The Commission said that the company has also failed to provide researchers access to public data as expected by the DSA.
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