"X axes European Commission’s ad account after €120M EU fine"

[...] The European Commission has lost access to its control panel for buying and tracking ads on Elon Musk’s X — after fining the social media platform €120 million for violating EU transparency rules.

“Your ad account has been terminated,” X’s head of product, Nikita Bier, wrote on the platform early Sunday.

Bier accused the EU executive of trying to amplify its own social media post about the fine on X by trying “to take advantage of an exploit in our Ad Composer — to post a link that deceives users into thinking it's a video and to artificially increase its reach.”

The Commission fined X on Thursday for breaching the EU’s rules under the Digital Services Act (DSA), which aims to limit the spread of illegal content. The breaches included a lack of transparency around X’s advertising library and the company’s decision to change its trademark blue checkmark from a means of verification to a “deceptive” paid feature. [...]

U.S. Vice President JD Vance blasted Brussels' action, describing the fine as a response for “not engaging in censorship” — a notion the Commission has dismissed.

“The DSA is having not to do with censorship,” said the EU's tech czar, Henna Virkkunen, told reporters on Thursday. “This decision is about the transparency of X.”