> to post a link that deceives users into thinking it is a video and to artificially increase its reach (...) As you may know, X believes that everyone should have an equal voice on our platform

So... not equal voice? Those who pay get better voice and those who post videos get even better one?

> The violations include the misleading design of the blue tick

In what way is it misleading?

The European Commission said by allowing people to pay for a blue verified check mark on their profile, the platform "deceives users" because the firm is not "meaningfully verifying" who is behind the account.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g9kejzvw0o

> the platform "deceives users" because the firm is not "meaningfully verifying" who is behind the account.

Are users confused? The checkmark clearly means “paid subscriber” rather than “verified identity,” and this is publicly disclosed.

Would the commission prefer that X does away with the mechanism altogether OR is their real goal to force the collection of users’ identity?

The checkmark clearly means “paid subscriber” to you maybe. I don't know what the commission would prefer to do, and I don't know how allowing only verified users to have a tick would enforce identity collection

I would expect everybody on hn to know the shift from verified to paid users, I wouldn't expect a regular Joe to know about it

When you hover over someone's blue checkmark, it says: "Verified account" with a hyperlink to "learn more" which take you to this page: https://help.x.com/en/managing-your-account/about-x-verified... where it says:

Your account must meet the following criteria to receive or retain the blue checkmark:

- Complete: Your account must have a display name and profile photo

- Active use: Your account must be active in the past 30 days to subscribe to X Premium

- Security: Your account must have a confirmed phone number

Non-Deceptive:

- Your account must have no recent changes to your profile photo, display name, or username (@handle)

- Your account must have no signs of being misleading or deceptive

- Your account must have no signs of engaging in platform manipulation and spam

I honestly find it deceptive at first, given that it is not what is expected by the regular person

Looking at the official EU commission statement, this is it and I agree with it:

X's use of the ‘blue checkmark' for ‘verified accounts' deceives users. This violates the DSA obligation for online platforms to prohibit deceptive design practices on their services. On X, anyone can pay to obtain the ‘verified' status without the company meaningfully verifying who is behind the account, making it difficult for users to judge the authenticity of accounts and content they engage with. This deception exposes users to scams, including impersonation frauds, as well as other forms of manipulation by malicious actors. While the DSA does not mandate user verification, it clearly prohibits online platforms from falsely claiming that users have been verified, when no such verification took place.

So if "verified" nomenclature and badging changed to "paid", that would resolve this problem in your mind?

Heh, partially. While it would be better, a tick has imprinted the notion of something "official" that can't be bought regardless of the price. Maybe that would be enough for me but not for the EC

And Autopilot clearly means Traffic-Aware Cruise Control, only idiot would think otherwise, right?