EU Commission accepts X action plan to address bloc's digital rules breaches

The European Commission on Wednesday accepted US social media company X's corrective action plan to address breaches of the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA), requiring the platform to strengthen transparency and improve researchers' access to public data.

Under the commitments accepted by the EU Commission, X will upgrade its advertisement repository by introducing additional search filters based on ad content and targeting criteria, displaying search results directly within the repository interface instead of downloadable spreadsheets, and significantly reducing response times.

The company also pledged to provide more detailed information about advertisements, including their full content and destination URLs, and to make the repository accessible through an application programming interface (API).

To address shortcomings related to researchers' access to public data, X committed to improve its screening process for applications, ensure eligible researchers receive free and timely API access, provide appropriate data volumes, and amend its terms and conditions to clarify that eligible researchers are not prohibited from scraping publicly available data.

The EU Commission said the measures are intended to enable researchers, civil society organizations and the public to better monitor systemic risks on the platform and assess its broader impact on users and European society.

The commitments will be subject to an independent external audit, with X required to submit the audit report to the EU Commission within six months of implementing the measures and follow up on the auditor's recommendations.

X has six months to implement the action plan and will remain under enhanced supervision by the EU Commission during that period.

The EU Commission noted that the European Board for Digital Services had considered the company's original action plan "overall inadequate" to fully address the identified infringements.

The commitments form part of the bloc's ongoing enforcement of the DSA, which sets rules for online platforms operating in the EU to improve transparency, accountability and user protection.