EU fines Elon Musk's X €120 million for first confirmed DSA breaches

Digital Services Act penalty follows a two-year Commission look at X's blue check system, ad repository, and data access for researchers – but other probes continue 

The European Commission announced a fine of €120 million on Elon Musk’s social media platform X on Friday for breaching transparency obligations required by the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), marking the first penalty issued under the bloc’s online governance rulebook.

The Commission’s investigation found the platform had violated several DSA requirements – including in relation to the design of its “blue check mark” system which the EU determined was unlawfully deceptive. Under Musk’s ownership of the platform the feature was changed from denoting verified accounts to being a signal that users could pay to obtain. (...)