Commission accepts X's corrective measures to terminate breaches of the DSA

The European Commission has accepted X's action plan to comply with transparency obligations and researchers' access to data, under the Digital Services Act.

The approved measures represent an important step in enabling researchers, civil society and the public in general to gain more transparency into X's systems, in particular to monitor X's systemic risks and to assess the platform's broader impact on its users and European society as a whole.

To provide a functional advertisement repository, in line with the standards required by the Digital Services Act, X committed to implement the following corrective measures:

• Enhance the repository's search functionality by introducing additional search filters, such as those based on ad content and targeting criteria.
• Display search results directly on the interface of the ad repository rather than on separate Excels.
• Improve the repository's response speed reducing the response time from 200 seconds to the minimum time technically achievable.
• Provide additional information about advertisements, including the full content of the advertisement and the URLs to which advertisements redirect users.
• Enable access to the repository via an API.

Regarding the breaches concerning the obligation to grant researchers access to public data, X will take the following corrective measures:

• Revise and improve its screening process for applications by researchers to access its public data via its API, ensuring eligible researchers are not excluded in error.
• Provide eligible researchers with access to data free-of-charge.
• Ensure timely access for eligible researchers, including to the appropriate volumes of data. X commits to reduce significantly the processing time for researcher applications, including by avoiding unnecessary exchanges with applicants.
• Update its terms and conditions to explicitly state that eligible researchers are not contractually prohibited from scraping publicly available data.

These changes will be subjected to an external and independent audit, whichX has committed to undertake. X will also send the audit report within six months after implementing the measures and follow up with the Commission to ensure the effective implementation of the auditor's recommendations.

X now has six months to implement its action plan and is subjected to an enhanced supervision regime. Following the opinion of the Board for Digital Services, which found X's action plan overall inadequate to address the infringement, the Commission has clarified key implementation requirements for X. The Commission will closely supervise X's implementation of the action plan, paying particular attention to the issues which the Board considered inadequately addressed and in need of specific attention. The approved measures represent an important step in enabling researchers, civil society and the public in general to gain more transparency into X's systems, in particular to monitor X's systemic risks and to assess the platform's broader impact on its users and European society as a whole.

Find further information about the:

• Supervision of the designated very large online platforms and search engines under DSA
• Digital Services Act- main aspects of the regulation
• User rights under the Digital Services Act- an overview

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