Month: December 2023

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Chris Delmas)

The European Union has opened a formal investigation into whether Elon Musk's X platform (formerly Twitter) violated the Digital Services Act (DSA), which could result in fines of up to 6 percent of global revenue. A European Commission announcement today said the agency "opened formal proceedings to assess whether X may have breached the Digital Services Act (DSA) in areas linked to risk management, content moderation, dark patterns, advertising transparency and data access for researchers."

This is the commission's first formal investigation under the Digital Services Act, which applies to large online platforms and has requirements on content moderation and transparency. The step has been in the works since at least October, when a formal request for information was sent amid reports of widespread Israel/Hamas disinformation.

The European Commission today said it "decided to open formal infringement proceedings against X under the Digital Services Act" after reviewing X's replies to the request for information on topics including "the dissemination of illegal content in the context of Hamas' terrorist attacks against Israel." The commission said the investigation will focus on dissemination of illegal content, the effectiveness of measures taken to combat information manipulation on X, transparency, and "a suspected deceptive design of the user interface."

Enlarge (credit: Bloomberg via Getty)

Adobe has abandoned its proposed $20 billion acquisition of product design software company Figma, as there was “no clear path to receive necessary regulatory approvals” from UK and EU watchdogs.

The deal had faced probes from both the UK and EU competition regulators for fears it would have an impact on the product design, image editing and illustration markets.

Adobe refused to offer remedies to satisfy the UK Competition and Markets Authority’s concerns last week, according to a document published by the regulator on Monday, arguing that a divestment would be “wholly disproportionate.”