EU Commission issues a fine of €120 million to X for breaching transparency obligations under the Digital Services Act (DSA)

Yesterday, the EU Commission officially announced that it has fined X (formerly Twitter) €120 million for breaching transparency obligations under the Digital Services Act (DSA). This is the first non-compliance decision under the DSA.

Today, we fined X for non-compliance with transparency obligations under the DSA.

We're holding X accountable for:
🔹Deceptive design of its ‘blue checkmark’
🔹Lack of transparency of its advertising repository
🔹Failure to provide access to public data for researchers

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— European Commission (@EU_Commission) December 5, 2025

According to the Commission, X is fined due to 3 reasons:

Deceptive design of X’s ‘Blue checkmark.’

On X, anyone can obtain the ‘Blue checkmark’ that represents ‘verified status.’ It is claimed that the company provides this checkmark without meaningfully verifying who is behind the account, making it difficult for users to judge the authenticity of accounts and content they engage with.

This violates the DSA obligation for online platforms to prohibit deceptive design practices and also exposes users to scams like impersonation fraud. Though the DSA does not mandate user verification, it clearly prohibits online platforms from falsely claiming that users have been verified when no such verification took place.

Lack of transparency of X’s ads repository

X does not provide the required details about advertisements shown, such as who paid for them, why users were targeted, and how ads were shown, failing the transparency and accessibility requirements of the DSA.

Accessible and searchable ad repositories are critical for researchers and civil society to detect scams, hybrid threat campaigns, coordinated information operations, and fake advertisements.

Failure to provide researchers access to public data

X also fails to meet its DSA obligations to provide researchers with access to the platform’s public data. For instance, X’s terms of service prohibit eligible researchers from independently accessing its public data, including through scraping.

Also, X’s processes for researchers’ access to public data impose unnecessary barriers, effectively undermining research into several systemic risks in the European Union.

Next Steps for X stated by the EU Commission

• X now has 60 working days to inform the Commission of the specific measures it intends to take to bring to an end the infringement of Article 25 (1) DSA, related to the deceptive use of blue checkmarks.
• X has 90 working days to submit to the Commission an action plan to reveal the necessary measures to address the infringement of Articles 39 and 40 (12) DSA, related to the advertising repository and access to public data for researchers.

After this, the Board of Digital Services will have one month from receipt of X’s action plan to give its opinion, while the Commission will have another month to give its final decision and set a reasonable implementation period.

If X fails to comply with the non-compliance decision, it may lead to a periodic penalty. X has not issued an official statement, but Elon Musk did react to the above EU Commission post.

Bullshit

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 5, 2025

After this fine imposed by the EU, it is assumed that X may make some changes in the Blue checkmark to align with DSA rules, like making the Blue Tick appear as a premium badge and not a verification symbol, or may oblige identity verification for Blue Tick. If X fails to meet the EU rules, Blue Tick could be removed in the EU and could be removed globally (if X refuses changes).