Coimisiún Na Meán may face holding X and Elon Musk to account
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The Irish regulator may face the task of holding social media giant X — and its owner Elon Musk to account, after the European Commission revealed the former Twitter could be facing multi-million-euro fines.
X has been told by the commission that it has breached Europe’s landmark legislation aimed at regulating tech giants, the Digital Services Act, including around how it designates verified accounts with “blue checks” to “deceive users”.
“Since anyone can subscribe to obtain such a ‘verified’ status, it negatively affects users' ability to make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of the accounts and the content they interact with,” it said.
“There is evidence of motivated malicious actors abusing the ‘verified account’ to deceive users.”
In response, in a post on X, Mr Musk claimed the commission of offering his company an “illegal secret deal".
"If we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us," he said, adding X did not accept.
While X now has a chance to offer a defence of the claims made against it, if the commission follows through and rules that it has breached the law, fines of up to 6% of global turnover could be dished out and an order issued to change its practices.
Given Twitter enjoyed revenues of $5bn in 2021, before it was taken over by Mr Musk, any financial sanction could be severe.
It is understood the Irish regulator, Coimisiún Na Meán, while not directly involved in this investigation as it dates from before it assumed its powers under the Digital Services Act, could play a role in overseeing how X makes any changes required as a result of the investigation.
This is because X has its European headquarters in Dublin, making it fall under Coimisiún na Mean’s remit.
If X does not live up to any commitments it makes, this could lead to further investigations from either the European Commission or Coimisiún na Meán, and further fines dished out.
The Irish regulator will have a major role to play in regulating large tech giants going forward, given over half of the large online platforms covered by these laws are based here.
After Mr Musk bought Twitter in 2022, it started issuing verification marks to anyone who paid $8 per month (€7.35) for one.
A premium account that offers a checkmark can now be obtained for €8.61 a month when paid annually.
Before Mr Musk’s acquisition, the ticks mirrored verification badges common on social media and were largely reserved for celebrities, politicians, and other influential accounts.
European commissioner Thierry Breton 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 Digital Services Act.”
The commission also charged X with failing to comply with requirements on ad transparency.
Under the Digital Services Act, platforms must publish a database of all digital advertisements they have carried, with details including who paid for them and their intended audience.
But X’s ad database has “design features and access barriers” that make it “unfit for its transparency purpose”, the commission said.
The company also falls short when it comes to giving researchers access to public data, as required by the Digital Services Act, the commission said.