{"id":332458,"date":"2025-12-08T13:50:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T13:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/332458\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T13:50:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T13:50:10","slug":"elon-musks-x-bans-european-commission-from-making-ads-after-e120m-fine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/332458\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk’s X bans European Commission from making ads after \u20ac120m fine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Laura CressTechnology reporter<\/p>\n

\"GettyGetty Images<\/p>\n

X has blocked the European Commission from making adverts on its platform – a move which comes a few days after it fined Elon Musk’s site \u20ac120m (\u00a3105m) over its blue tick badges.<\/p>\n

Nikita Bier, who has a senior role at the social media site, accused the European Union (EU) regulator<\/a> of trying to “take advantage” of “an exploit” in its advertising system to promote its post about the fine on Friday.<\/p>\n

“It seems you believe that the rules should not apply to your account,” he said. “Your ad account has been terminated.”<\/p>\n

A European Commission spokesperson told BBC News the Commission “always uses all social media platforms in good faith”.<\/p>\n

X’s fine, issued on Friday, was the first under the EU’s Digital Services Act.<\/p>\n

The EU regulator said the platform’s blue tick system was “deceptive” because the firm was not “meaningfully verifying users”.<\/p>\n

“This deception exposes users to scams, including impersonation frauds, as well as other forms of manipulation by malicious actors,” it said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It claimed X was also failing to provide transparency around its adverts, and was not giving researchers access to public data.<\/p>\n

The social media platform has been given 60 days to respond to the Commission about concerns surrounding its blue checkmarks, or face extra penalties.<\/p>\n

Following the fine, Elon Musk posted on his platform to say the EU “should be abolished”, and retweeted a response from another X user comparing it to fascism.<\/p>\n

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) accused the EU regulator of attacking and censoring US firms<\/a>, adding, “the days of censoring Americans online are over”.<\/p>\n

‘Never been abused like this’<\/p>\n

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

He claimed it had posted a link which itself deceived users – tricking them into thinking it was a video “to artificially increase its reach”.<\/p>\n

He said the “exploit”, which had “never been abused like this”, had now been removed.<\/p>\n

Ad accounts on X are used by businesses to create and analyse paid advertising campaigns and run “promoted” posts on the site, separate from the users’ X profile. <\/p>\n

In response, a European Commission spokesperson told BBC News that it was “simply using the tools that platforms themselves are making available to our corporate accounts”.<\/p>\n

“\u2060We expect these tools to be fully in line with the platforms’ own terms and conditions, as well as with our legislative framework,” it said.<\/p>\n

And it is not the first time there has been disagreement between X and global regulators.<\/p>\n

In 2024, Brazil’s Supreme Court lifted a ban on X<\/a> after it agreed to pay 28 million reais ($5.1m; \u00a33.8m), and blocked accounts accused of spreading misinformation. <\/p>\n

The previous year, Australia’s internet safety watchdog fined<\/a> it A$610,000 ($386,000; \u00a3317,360) for failing to cooperate with a probe into anti-child abuse practices.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Laura CressTechnology reporter Getty Images X has blocked the European Commission from making adverts on its platform –…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-332458","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}