Elon Musk Reveals European Commission Offered X 'Illegal Secret Deal' to Censor Free Speech While Thierry Breton Calls Platform's 'Blue Checks' Misleading

The European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Bretonbrought charges against Elon Musk XPreviously Twitteralleging deceptive practices and a lack of transparency. The tech billionaire has now alleged that the commission “offered X an illegal secret deal.”

What happened:On Friday, Breaton lashed out at X and accused the social media platform acquired by Musk of failing to meet standards set by the Digital Services Act of the 27-nation bloc.

He criticized the blue X checkmarks, saying they used to be exclusive and meant “trusted sources of information.” But now, the blue badges are available to anyone willing to pay $8 a month.

See also: Two months after Mark Zuckerberg cast shade on Vision Pro, analyst says Apple’s VR glasses won’t hit 500,000 units in 2024, half of Tim Cook’s initial 1 million target

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In response to these accusations, Elon Musk said: “The European Commission offered X an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they wouldn’t fine us. The other platforms accepted this deal. X didn’t.”

Breton refuted these allegations, saying that no “secret agreement” was ever reached.

Why is this important?:Earlier this month, the EU also issued a warning to X for failing to police harmful content. This is the third major action taken by EU regulators against leading tech companies in recent weeks.

X now has the opportunity to respond to the allegations and implement the changes necessary to comply, making them legally binding. If the commission is not satisfied, it can impose penalties of up to 6% of the company’s annual global revenue and require corrective measures.

Tick Tockthe e-commerce platform AliExpressAnd Meta-platformsthe owner of Facebook And Instagramare also the subject of ongoing DSA investigations.

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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced using AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

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