The DSA Showed Teeth Against X but the EU Is Afraid to Call It a Win

In the last weeks of 2025, the European Commission issued its first fine under the Digital Services Act (DSA). It notably found that X’s use of its “blue checkmark” for verified accounts deceived users and that it had failed to meet its obligation to maintain a functioning advertising repository. As a result, the European Commission issued a €120 million fine and gave the company three months to comply.

This decision is the culmination of a two-year process, which represents the first full enforcement of provisions of the DSA, a European regulation aimed at, inter alia, mandating transparency and accountability of very large online platforms.

While some skepticism may be legitimate regarding the length and the relative opacity of these proceedings — especially given the European Ombudsman reprimand of the Commission last year on similar grounds — it seems, at first glance, that this first decision illustrates very well what the DSA is intended to achieve. The regulation indeed puts the spotlight on platforms for their deceptive systems and fines them for not complying with transparency.