It’s already happened just over a year and a half since Elon Musk finally bought Twitter after the summer soap opera. And while it looked like the end of the nonsense the billionaire has been involved in since he submitted his buyout offer a month ago, the truth is that the nonsense has only just begun. And since then, in many ways, the social network has only gotten worse, becoming a small shadow of what it was in its early days. It’s not all Musk’s fault, of course, but it’s true that not only did he do nothing to avoid it, he exacerbated it with many of his decisions.

Once you get it under control, we had news about his immediate plans. First, a brutal layoff process that got so out of hand that he subsequently had to rehire the people he fired, and an attempt to improve the social network’s monetization through its Twitter Blue program, which had a “brilliant” Idea to change the verification system that was until until now applied for free to relevant accounts in certain areas to become something anyone willing to pay a monthly fee could get.”

According to Musk, this will represent a big qualitative improvement for Twitter, but the truth is that in reality converted into an embarrassing farcewith identity theft everywhere. And while they’ve tried to introduce some improvements since then, the harsh reality is that the authentication system is still clearly open to improvement. Of course, the implementation of these improvements could lead to a decrease in the number of subscribers, and now we all know what Musk’s absolute priority is.

However, some regulators don’t seem to be taking kindly to the change and have decided to take action. So as we read in the official statement, The European Commission has told Twitter its preliminary conclusions on the “new” verified, as well as its lack of transparency in relation to its role as an advertising platform and restrictions on researchers’ access to data. This is what the European organization says:

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• First, deceives the user. Because anyone can apply to get that “verified” status, negatively affects users’ ability to make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of the accounts and content they work with. There is evidence that motivated malicious actors are abusing “verified account” to deceive users.
• Second, X is disrespectful requires transparency in advertising, because it does not provide a reliable and accessible ad repository, but instead creates design characteristics and access barriers that make the repository unsuitable for its purpose of user-friendly transparency. In particular, the proposal does not allow for the necessary monitoring and investigation of emerging risks resulting from the distribution of online advertising.
• Third, X does not gives researchers access to your public data in accordance with the conditions set out in the Digital Services Act. In particular, X bans eligible researchers separate approach your public data, such as by scraping as described in their terms of service. Next, the process grant authorized researchers access to your Application Programming Interface (API) It seems to discourage researchers from carrying out their research projects or leave them no choice but to pay exorbitant fees.

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back in the day #BlueChecks used to mean trusted sources of information✔️🐦

Now with X, our tentative view is that:

❌ They deceive the user

❌ They violate #DSA

X now has the right to defend — but if our view is confirmed, we will introduce targets and demand significant changes. pic.twitter.com/M9tGA5pYQr

— Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton) July 12, 2024

As a result, and although we are talking about preliminary conclusions at the moment, the European Commission is considering it Twitter does not comply with the Digital Services Act, and will start a formal procedure in which, yes, the social network will have the opportunity to argue its position or perhaps reach some type of agreement similar to the one we told you this morning about Apple and the EC. Of course, given the attitude of Musk, who responded to Thierry Breton’s tweet and tried to be funny, and who has previously shown his disdain for European institutions, it doesn’t seem very likely.