X deactivates European Commission’s ad account after the company was fined €120M

X’s Head of Product Nikita Bier fired back at the European Commission this weekend after the EC fined the social media company €120 million (around $140 million).

In its first fine under the European Union’s Digital Services Act, the commission called X’s blue checkmark system “deceptive” and said the paid verification system makes users vulnerable to impersonation and scams. The commission also said X’s advertising repository failed to meet the DSA’s requirements for transparency and accessibility.

The commission said that X must respond within 60 days to its concerns about blue checkmarks, and within 90 days to the ad transparency violations, or it could face additional penalties.

After the fine was announced, X owner Elon Musk described it as “bullshit” and also posted, “How long before the EU is gone? AbolishTheEU”.

Now it seems X has penalized the commission’s account on the platform — not, the company says, because of the fine, but rather the commission’s use of X’s advertising system.

Quoting the commission’s post announcing the fine, X’s Bier accused the EC of logging into a “dormant ad account 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.”

“As you may be aware, X believes everyone should have an equal voice on our platform,” Bier wrote. “However, it seems you believe that the rules should not apply to your account.”

As a result, he said the commission’s ad account had been “terminated.” Bier subsequently said the exploit “has never been abused like this” and has since been patched.

A European Commission spokesperson told TechCrunch that the commission “always uses all social media platforms in good faith.”

⁠”The Commission is simply using the tools that platforms themselves are making available to our corporate accounts — this was the case with the ‘Post Composer’ tool in X,” the spokesperson said. “⁠We expect these tools to be fully in line with the platforms’ own terms and conditions, as well as with our legislative framework.”

The spokesperson added that the commission suspended paid advertising on X in October 2023, and that suspension remains in effect.

This post has been updated with comments from a European Commission spokesperson.