Elon Musk's X deceives users and breaches online content rules, EU says

Elon Musk's X is in breach of EU online content rules as the social media platform uses "dark patterns" to deceive users, the European Commission said Friday.

The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, started an investigation last year to assess whether X may be in breach of the Digital Services Act. The body's preliminary view, published Friday, is that the platform has broken rules regarding dark patterns, advertising transparency and data access for researchers.

X's use of the blue checkmark for "verified accounts" does not correspond to industry practices as anyone can subscribe and obtain a verified status, the commission said. It added that there was evidence of "motivated malicious actors" abusing the verified status to deceive users.

If the commission's views are confirmed, X could face a fine of up to 6% of its global annual turnover.

"X has now the right of defence — but if our view is confirmed we will impose fines & require significant changes," EU industry chief Thierry Breton said in a post on X.

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