The European Commission fined platform X, owned by Elon Musk, with 120 million euros on Friday, accusing it of violating transparency obligations under the European Digital Services Act (DSA). Shortly after the sanction, X deleted the European Commission’s advertising account.
The action was confirmed by Nikita Bier, the platform’s strategy chief.
"You accessed your inactive advertising account to exploit a loophole in Ad Composer, to post a link that misleads users, making them believe it is a video, and to artificially increase its visibility.
As you probably know, X believes that everyone should have an equal voice on the platform. However, it seems that you believe that the rules should not apply to your account. Your advertising account has been closed," wrote Bier in response to the post announcing the fine by the Commission.
The decision on December 5 is the first non-compliance ruling issued under the DSA, legislation aiming to end the "Wild West" of the online environment, writes isole24ore.com. The Commission accuses the platform of deceptive design of blue checkmarks, lack of transparency in the ad archive, and failure to provide necessary access for researchers to public data. Another part of the investigation - related to the spread of illegal content - is still ongoing.
The procedure was initiated on December 18, 2023, to determine whether X, acquired by Musk in 2022, violated the DSA regarding content moderation and the effectiveness of measures against information manipulation.
A day after the fine was announced, Elon Musk launched an attack on the EU, also on his platform:
"The European Union should be abolished, and sovereignty should be returned to individual states, so that governments can better represent their citizens."