Elon Musk’s X bans European Commission from making advertisements after €120m effective | EUROtoday

X has blocked the European Commission from making adverts on its platform – a transfer which comes a couple of days after it fined Elon Musk’s web site €120m (£105m) over its blue tick badges.

Nikita Bier, who has a senior position on the social media web site, accused the European Union (EU) regulator of attempting to “take advantage” of “an exploit” in its promoting system to advertise its publish concerning the effective on Friday.

“It seems you believe that the rules should not apply to your account,” he stated. “Your ad account has been terminated.”

A European Commission spokesperson informed BBC News the Commission “always uses all social media platforms in good faith”.

X’s effective, issued on Friday, was the primary beneath the EU’s Digital Services Act.

The EU regulator stated the platform’s blue tick system was “deceptive” as a result of the agency was not “meaningfully verifying users”.

“This deception exposes users to scams, including impersonation frauds, as well as other forms of manipulation by malicious actors,” it stated.

It claimed X was additionally failing to supply transparency round its adverts, and was not giving researchers entry to public knowledge.

The social media platform has been given 60 days to answer the Commission about issues surrounding its blue checkmarks, or face additional penalties.

Following the effective, Elon Musk posted on his platform to say the EU “should be abolished”, and retweeted a response from one other X person evaluating it to fascism.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) accused the EU regulator of attacking and censoring US corporations, including, “the days of censoring Americans online are over”.

The dispute originated with Mr Bier, who accused the Commission of activating a rarely-used account “to take advantage of an exploit”.

He claimed it had posted a hyperlink which itself deceived customers – tricking them into pondering it was a video “to artificially increase its reach”.

He stated the “exploit”, which had “never been abused like this”, had now been eliminated.

Ad accounts on X are utilized by companies to create and analyse paid promoting campaigns and run “promoted” posts on the location, separate from the customers’ X profile.

In response, a European Commission spokesperson informed BBC News that it was “simply using the tools that platforms themselves are making available to our corporate accounts”.

“⁠We expect these tools to be fully in line with the platforms’ own terms and conditions, as well as with our legislative framework,” it stated.

And it’s not the primary time there was disagreement between X and international regulators.

In 2024, Brazil’s Supreme Court lifted a ban on X after it agreed to pay 28 million reais ($5.1m; £3.8m), and blocked accounts accused of spreading misinformation.

The earlier 12 months, Australia’s web security watchdog fined it A$610,000 ($386,000; £317,360) for failing to cooperate with a probe into anti-child abuse practices.