Musk faces fine for selling blue ticks

The social network X (formerly Twitter) in the EU faces a fine of 6% of the turnover due to violations of the law – in particular, due to the sale of blue ticks. This is discussed on the website of the European Commission.

Complaint sparked by X’s account verification policies Users may assume that accounts with a blue check mark have been verified by the network – when in fact the check mark can be obtained by payment for a subscription.

“In the past, blue checkmarks meant reliable sources of information. As for X, our initial opinion is that they mislead users and violate the law on digital services,” wrote the EU Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton on the same X platform.

The European Commission also noted that the social network does not meet the requirements for advertising transparency and does not provide researchers with independent access to data, as stated in the law on digital services.

If the findings of the preliminary investigation by the European Commission are confirmed, the social network faces a fine of up to 6% of the total global turnover.

Let’s recall that in April 2023, social network X began to lose blue verification checks for which users did not pay. However, they were later reinstated for users with more than a million subscribers.