EU warns X it may face fines for 'deceptive' blue-tick system

The argument about blue ticks being deceptive seems dumb as a reason for a fine, they had always been a popularity/insider contacts game, now they're available to anyone willing to tie their account to a credit card. Nothing about them back when X was still called Twitter made people with checkmarks more trustworthy.

It was pretty common to run into checkmarks who were actually literal nobodies, and it was common for popular content creators who do not show their face or real name to not be able to get it despite suffering from impersonators, especially for creators who were not based in the West.

Official EU release: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_...

(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40945767)

So will Meta face the same? You can also pay for a blue checkmark there: https://about.meta.com/technologies/meta-verified/

The irony is that it was the pre-musk system that was deceptive. Previously bluechecks where given out capriciously at the whim of staff, including to people with no particular merit other than that they paid substantial bribes.

Now its just a publicly documented feature denoting people who have paid accounts. One could debate if the opaque and graft laden former system was more or less useful on the whole (on account of the inappropriate awards due to corrupting being relatively rare), but I think there isn't a serious argument that the current system is deceptive or that the former system wasn't deceptive.

In that light, I think it's difficult to not view this action as retaliation for removal of a feature which granted the EU a more substantial platform for spreading their own influence materials than they'd otherwise have, which they have absolutely no legal basis to demand, and where any such mandate would violate X's free speech rights.

Blue ticks weren't previously ways to "signal an account's reliability". They were a way to deceive people into thinking the account was realiable, while in fact it was a signal that the account was a vetted source of approved propaganda, the party line, the official narrative.

Finally.

Its insane that all of a sudden everyone that pays a bit money can have a "verified" checkmark, while claiming to be someone else.

The same EU that doesn’t allow any public agencies to collect statistical data that goes against their narrative in social sensitive areas, is now threatening to fine a private company because they don’t provide them access to their engagement and advertisement data.

The hypocrisy.

This seems like the EU is really overstepping.

Yes, the EU does have a right to decide how they do business in their borders.

However, the American people also have a right to re-evaluate their level of friendship and support for a government that is constantly abusing American companies.