March 12 (Reuters) – Elon Musk’s social media company X has agreed to change its verification mechanism in the European Union following a fine of 120 million euros, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing a European Commission spokesperson.
X was fined in December by EU tech regulators for breaching online content rules, the first sanction under a landmark legislation that drew criticism from the U.S. government.
Here are the details:
* The Bloomberg report quoted European Commissionspokesperson Thomas Regnier saying that X submitted remedies inrelation to its blue check mark verification feature. * The European Commission and X did not immediately respondto Reuters requests for comment. * Regnier said the commission will assess the proposedremedies, according to the report. * The EU sanction against X had followed a two-year-longinvestigation under the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA), whichrequires online platforms to do more to tackle illegal andharmful content. * The European Commission in July 2024 had charged X withdeceiving users, saying that the blue checkmark does notcorrespond to industry practices and that anyone can pay to geta “verified” status. * The blue checkmark had previously indicated that anaccount belonged to a public figure whose identity was verified,but Musk changed it to indicate it belonged to a paid subscriberafter acquiring X in 2022. * Musk acquired X, formerly known as Twitter, for $44billion.
(Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Sahal Muhammed)