X has added a new overview of what checkmarks in the app now actually represent, as EU investigators continue to examine the app’s change in approach on verification, and whether it violates the EU Digital Services Act (DSA).
Last year, then EU Commissioner Thierry Breton publicly criticized X’s change to its verification system, saying that X’s “X Premium” subscription package is deceptive, and infringes DSA regulations.
More specifically, the EU Commission found that in enabling users to buy blue ticks, that’s potentially created a new vector for the promotion of misinformation, because the appearance of a checkmark adds legitimacy to an account, as established by Twitter’s previous verification system.
As per the EU Commission:
“Since anyone can subscribe to obtain such a ‘verified’ status, it negatively affects users’ ability to make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of the accounts and the content they interact with. There is evidence of motivated malicious actors abusing the ‘verified account’ to deceive users.”
And there is at least some evidence of exactly that, with various brands being impersonated, complete with blue ticks on their accounts, on X.
In response to these initial findings, however, X owner Elon Musk was defiant, noting that X was looking “forward to a very public battle in court, so that the people of Europe can know the truth.”
Because everything’s, apparently, part of a deeper conspiracy, but it seems that X is now changing its tune, in the hopes of avoiding potentially costly penalties as a result of the EU investigation.
As reported by Bloomberg, X has now added this new explainer in the app, which provides a more detailed overview of what checkmarks now actually represent:
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As you can see, X is trying to reduce potential confusion, as well as accusations that it’s misleading users, by providing more context on its updated checkmark system.
It’s also got explainers within its Help platform that outline its full verification requirements, though some of them are also slightly contradictory.
For example, here, X explains that:
“Accounts that receive the blue checkmark as part of a Premium subscription will not undergo review to confirm that they meet the active, notable and authentic criteria that was used in the previous process.”
I know what X is trying to say here, that the updated system is different from the Twitter verification approach of old. But the note that Premium subscribers will not undergo a check seems to run counter to this element within the X’s listed Premium requirements:
“Your account must be active in the past 30 days to subscribe to X Premium.”
So they do have to be active, but X won’t check for such?
Of course, miscommunication is all part of the X experience, with half of its Help articles still referencing “Twitter,” “tweets,” and “retweets” in varying capacity. As such, contradictory messaging is pretty much par for the course, and X still doesn’t have an official communications department either, so there’s not a lot of uniformity checking.
But this is all an aside, what X is trying to do in this instance is provide a more thorough explanation of what the verification checkmark actually means in 2025, versus what it used to mean on Twitter-past.
Will that get the EU investigators off its back?
I mean, probably not. Elon himself has been highly critical of the EU Commission, which likely hasn’t endeared him to them in any way, while any analysis will also be assessing both historic and current violations within that review.
And if it finds that X’s updated checkmark approach is against the rules, it’ll still issue a fine, whether it’s changed things now or not.
This new explainer is likely also still not upfront enough. The Commission will no doubt argue that the average user would not have been made aware of this change before it was enacted, which has led to confusion in the app.
In which case, X will have to fix things moving forward, but that’ll likely include a notification sent out to all users to outline the full changes to the process.
I mean, that’s what Meta does when it falls foul of the EU rules, and it seems to generally be enough. Though Meta has also been fined a billion dollars in Europe over the past year, so…
(Side note: Meta’s also selling blue ticks, so it’s probably under the same scrutiny.)
Essentially, I doubt this new explainer is going to have much impact, but X also has to do something if it wants to appease the EU digital police.
