European Commission Investigates Elon Musk's X Platform for Potential Breaches of Digital Services Act, Use of Blue Checkmarks Under Scrutiny

The European Commission has investigated Elon Musk's social media platform X to assess if it is breaching the EU's Digital Services Act. The Commission's preliminary view is that X has broken the rules around transparency of advertising, use of dark patterns to mislead users, and blocking access to data for researchers. X's use of blue checkmarks for any user who pays a subscription breaks industry standards for verifying public figures. There is also evidence that some verified users have misled others. X could face fines of up to 6% of its annual global revenue.