The European Commission has accepted the measures proposed by social media platform X to comply with European digital regulations, it announced on Thursday.
The platform (formerly Twitter), owned by tech billionaire Elon Musk, was required to become more transparent after the Commission imposed a €120 million fine.
The measures are "an important step toward enabling researchers, civil society, and the general public to gain greater transparency into X's systems," the Commission stated in a press release.
According to the Commission, this will provide a better understanding of potential systemic risks and the platform's broader impact on users and society.
Among other things, X has pledged to improve access to its advertising registry in several areas, with better search functions and faster response times. This should better enable researchers to detect, for example, hybrid threat campaigns or fake advertisements. Now, X has six months to implement the measures.
Late last year, the Commission imposed a fine of €120 million on X because the social network committed several violations of the transparency obligations that large platforms must respect.
It was the first time the Commission had imposed a fine under the Digital Services Act (DSA), which has been in effect since 2023.
At that time, X was also reprimanded for its so-called "blue checkmark". Anyone could pay to obtain that verified status without any thorough verification of who was behind the account.
This issue has since been resolved by no longer labeling these users as "verified" but rather as "premium".
