ATHENS

The current “blue tick” policy of popular social media platform X deceives its users, leaving it open to possible heavy fines, said the EU Commission on Friday.

“Today, the Commission has informed X of its preliminary view that it is in breach of the (EU’s) Digital Services Act (DSA) in areas linked to dark patterns, advertising transparency and data access for researchers,” the commission said in a statement.

X’s blue tick policy negatively affects users' ability to make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of accounts on the platform and the content they interact with, said the commission, as anyone can subscribe to get a blue tick, which supposedly indicates a “verified account.”

“There is evidence of motivated malicious actors abusing the ‘verified account’ (status) to deceive users,” it argued.

Moreover, it said, “X does not comply with the required transparency on advertising, as it does not provide a searchable and reliable advertisement repository.”

The commission also claimed the social media platform fails to provide access to its public data to researchers as required by the Digital Services Act.

The commission warned that if its preliminary views are to be ultimately confirmed, X could face severe fines including up to 6% of its total worldwide annual turnover.

EU Commissioner for Internal Market 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 DSA.”​​​​​​​