EU approves X’s plan to end DSA breaches
X has six months.
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- The European Commission approved X’s action plan to meet Digital Services Act transparency rules.
- X has six months to improve ad transparency and researcher access, under close EU monitoring.
- The plan follows a €120 million fine over paid verification, ad repository barriers, and blocked public data access.
- The changes could help researchers and civil society assess X’s risks and impact on European users.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
The European Commission has given X the go-ahead to implement additional measures to meet the Digital Services Act’s (DSA) transparency obligations.
In December 2025, Elon Musk’s social media company X was fined €120 million for breaching EU online content rules.
The European Commission found that X’s use of the blue checkmark for verified accounts deceived users because anyone could obtain the desired verified status by simply paying for it.
In addition, the EU’s executive branch ruled that X failed to meet the transparency and accessibility requirements under the DSA. X had incorporated access barriers in its ad repositories, undermining the accessibility and searchability of its systems for researchers and civil society.
Lastly, the Commission concluded that X failed to provide researchers with access to the platform’s public data.
The fine followed a two-year-long investigation under the DSA, which requires online platforms to do more to tackle illegal and harmful content.
Since the European Commission issued the fine, X has come up with an “action plan” to comply with the DSA’s transparency obligations and researchers’ access to data.
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Among other things, X has promised to improve its ads repository’s search functionality by implementing additional filters based on ad content and targeting criteria. Moreover, the search results will appear immediately, and the search functionality will work faster than it does now. An API will be released to enable access to X’s ad repository.
In addition, eligible researchers will receive timely access to publicly available information, free of charge. Lastly, the updated terms and conditions explicitly state that eligible researchers are allowed to scrape public information from the platform again.
“These changes will be subjected to an external and independent audit, which X has committed to undertake,” the European Commission states in a press release.
X now has six months to implement its plans. This process will be closely monitored by the EU’s executive body.
“The approved measures represent an important step in enabling researchers, civil society, and the public in general to gain more transparency into X’s systems, in particular to monitor X’s systemic risks, and to assess the platform’s broader impact on its users and European society as a whole,” the Commission concludes.
