EU officials say X’s paid-for blue check deceives users and breaks law

The European Commission says the blue checkmark system used by micro-blogging platform X — formerly Twitter — effectively deceives users and fails to comply with the newly introduced Digital Service Act.

In preliminary findings, the Commission — an executive branch of the European Union — found that the way X had implemented the blue checkmark cheats users since anyone can subscribe to obtain such a “verified” status.

Until November 2022, Twitter — as it was then — used the blue check mark to show that it had taken steps to verify the user’s identity. It was often applied to accounts of celebrities, politicians, journalists and commentators who might be the target of impersonators.

Shortly after Tesla and Space X CEO Elon Musk bought the platform in October 2022, he introduced a subscription system to the platform where those paying would get the blue checkmark displayed.

EC officials said the move meant users could not make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of the accounts and the content they interact with. There was also evidence of motivated malicious folk abusing the ability to become “verified accounts” to deceive users.

A Commission official said X’s decision to prioritize content from blue checkmark accounts in reply feeds misleads users too. “A normal user will not be aware that the priority replies are coming from accounts that are not necessarily trustworthy and unreliable. You can buy yourself into prioritization by buying blue checkmarks, and we think this is misleading.”

X’s use of the blue checkmarks breached the provision in the DSA to ban use of dark patterns, features of an online platform interface designed to manipulate or mislead users into choices they do not mean to make, the EC said.

Thierry Breton, commissioner for internal market, said: “Back in the day, BlueChecks used to mean trustworthy sources of information. Now with X, our preliminary view is that they deceive users and infringe the DSA. We also consider that X’s ads repository and conditions for data access by researchers are not in line with the DSA transparency requirements. X has now the right of defence — but if our view is confirmed we will impose fines and require significant changes.”

The Commission launched its investigation into X in December last year, in one of the first actions brought under the newly introduced DSA, legislation designed by the world’s richest trading and political bloc to hold Big Tech to account.

The Commission also published preliminary views that X had failed to meet DSA requirements on transparency on advertising on the platform. Officials said the social media company did not offer a searchable and reliable advertisement repository. Instead it introduced features and access barriers that made the repository unfit for its transparency purpose towards users, they argued.

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In addition, X failed to provide independent researchers with a usable API to access public data on the platform, instead creating barriers with “disproportionally high fees,” the Commish said.

Under the DSA, Big Tech companies can be fined up to six percent of global turnover — around $2.5 billion in X’s case.

Following the publication of the EC’s preliminary findings, X can defend itself by examining the documents in the Commission’s investigation file and offering its reply.

We asked X to comment. ®

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