{"id":14326,"date":"2024-07-12T13:48:11","date_gmt":"2024-07-12T13:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xislblogs.xtreamlab.net\/slwoods\/?p=14326"},"modified":"2024-07-12T13:53:05","modified_gmt":"2024-07-12T13:53:05","slug":"commission-sends-preliminary-findings-to-x-for-dsa-breach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/?p=14326","title":{"rendered":"Commission sends preliminary findings to X for DSA breach"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/xislblogs.xtreamlab.net\/slwoods\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/sites\/23\/2024\/07\/x-logo.jpg\" alt=\"X logo\" width=\"150\" height=\"138\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-14340\" \/>Today the EU Commission has informed X &#8211; the declining social media platform formerly known as Twitter &#8211; of its preliminary view that the company is in breach of the <a href=\"https:\/\/eur-lex.europa.eu\/legal-content\/EN\/TXT\/?uri=CELEX%3A32022R2065\">Digital Services Act (DSA)<\/a> in areas linked to dark patterns, advertising transparency and data access for researchers.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Based on an in-depth investigation that included, inter alia, the analysis of internal company documents, interviews with experts, as well as cooperation with national Digital Services Coordinators, the Commission has issued preliminary findings of non-compliance with the DSA on three grievances:<\/p>\r\n\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>First, X designs and operates its interface for the \u201cverified accounts\u201d with the \u201cBlue checkmark\u201d in a way that does not correspond to industry practice and <strong>deceives users. Since anyone can subscribe to obtain such a \u201cverified\u201d status<\/strong>, it negatively affects users&#8217; ability to make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of the accounts and the content they interact with. There is evidence of motivated malicious actors abusing the \u201cverified account\u201d to deceive users.<\/li><br \/><li>Second, X does not comply with the <strong>required transparency on advertising<\/strong>, as it does not provide a searchable and reliable advertisement repository, but instead put in place design features and access barriers that make the repository unfit for its transparency purpose towards users. In particular, the design does not allow for the required supervision and research into emerging risks brought about by the distribution of advertising online.<\/li><br \/><li>Third, X fails to <strong>provide access to its public data to researchers <\/strong>in line with the conditions set out in the DSA. In particular, X prohibits eligible researchers from <strong>independently accessing<\/strong> its public data, such as by scraping, as stated in its terms of service. In addition, X&#8217;s process to <strong>grant eligible researchers access to its application programming interface (API)<\/strong> appears to dissuade researchers from carrying out their research projects or leave them with no other choice than to pay disproportionally high fees.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<br \/>\r\n<p>If the Commission&#8217;s preliminary views were to be confirmed, the Commission would adopt a non-compliance decision finding that X is in breach of Articles 25, 39 and 40(12) of the DS, which could entail fines of up to 6% of X&#8217;s total worldwide annual turnover and order the provider to take measures to address the breach. A non-compliance decision may also trigger an enhanced supervision period to ensure compliance with the measures the provider intends to take to remedy the breach. The Commission can also impose periodic penalty payments to compel a platform to comply.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Thierry Breton, Commissioner for the Internal Market said:<\/p>\r\n\r\n<blockquote>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. We also consider that X\u2019s ads repository and conditions for data access by researchers are not in line with the DSA transparency requirements. X has now the right of defence \u2014 but if our view is confirmed we will impose fines and require significant changes.<\/blockquote>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today the EU Commission has informed X &#8211; the declining social media platform formerly known as Twitter &#8211; of its preliminary view that the company is in breach of the Digital Services Act (DSA) in areas linked to dark patterns, advertising transparency and data access for researchers. Based on an in-depth investigation that included, inter [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,9],"tags":[33,20,35,23],"class_list":["post-14326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-tech","tag-media-2","tag-politics-2","tag-social-media","tag-tech-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14326"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14344,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14326\/revisions\/14344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}