X CTO and Chairman Elon Musk alleged that the European Commission (EC) offered the social media platform an “illegal secret deal” to censor speeches if it wanted to avoid being fined in the EU.
Musk made the claims on social media on July 12 in response to the EC’s publication of the preliminary findings of an in-depth investigation under the Digital Services Act (DSA), which alleges that the platform “fails to comply with the DSA in key transparency areas . ”
According to Musk, the EC has offered to refrain from imposing a fine if X “silently censored the speech without telling anyone.” He added:
“The other platforms accepted that deal. Not X.”
In a separate tweet, Musk[s] looking forward to a very public battle in court.”
Blue check mark, data access concerns
The European Commission’s investigation results show that
The report claimed that the platform’s so-called “Blue Checkmarks” and verified accounts mislead users as anyone can obtain them. It added that these systems are often abused by bad actors.
The report also states that
Additionally, the social media platform does not provide eligible researchers with access to public data in accordance with the DSA. X’s terms of service prohibit scraping, while the API access process would prevent researchers from using the data and impose high costs.
Possible fines
The EC said that The final decision has yet to be made.
The preliminary findings point to compliance shortcomings that could result in hefty fines of up to 6% of the platform’s global annual revenue. Moreover, the platform would have to address the problem in order to continue operating in the EU.
The decision could also include a stricter supervision period and penalty payments.