X Claims It Banned the European Fee’s Advert Account. It Says It Wasn’t Utilizing Adverts

On Saturday, X says it slapped the European Fee with a ban on its X advert account over what it has deemed a rule violation. Coincidentally sufficient, the European Fee had just slapped that social media platform with a fine of about $140 Million a day earlier for alleged deceptiveness and lack of transparency, and for allegedly withholding crucial knowledge disclosures.

However the European Fee says it doesn’t pay for adverts on X anyway—a Fee coverage that has stood for over two years.

In response to an X submit by X head of product Nikita Bier, the European Commission’s tweet announcing the fine was itself misleading. Bier says there’s an exploit within the X advert composer, and that the European Fee used it “to submit a hyperlink that deceives customers into considering it’s a video and to artificially improve its attain.”

The irony of your announcement:

You logged into your dormant advert account to make the most of an exploit in our Advert Composer — to submit a hyperlink that deceives customers into considering it’s a video and to artificially improve its attain.

As chances are you’ll bear in mind, X believes everybody ought to… https://t.co/ziuhUOimOT

— Nikita Bier (@nikitabier) December 6, 2025

The European Fee’s submit does have a video in it:

In the present day, we fined X for non-compliance with transparency obligations below the DSA.

We’re holding X accountable for:
🔹Misleading design of its ‘blue checkmark’
🔹Lack of transparency of its promoting repository
🔹Failure to supply entry to public knowledge for researchers

↓

— European Fee (@EU_Commission) December 5, 2025

Nevertheless, a Fee spokesperson identified to Gizmodo that the European Fee announced a policy of not advertising on X back in 2023, in addition to a suspension of all different paid companies. “The suspension nonetheless applies,” the spokesperson stated.

The European Fee’s submit has what seems to be an overlaid play button in the beginning, but it surely autoplays a video—and that is no completely different from the relatively puzzling method video posts on X appear to work in regular circumstances, comparable to in this video post from Kawasaki. In our exams, on desktop the play/pause operate implied by the play button picture on the Fee’s submit works usually.

On cell, nevertheless, the play/pause operate is damaged in our exams. As a substitute of pausing the video, it takes the person to the European Commission’s press release about its fine against X. It’s not clear whether or not or not that is the difficulty that considerations X’s Nikita Bier. Gizmodo reached out to X for readability about this a number of instances, however has not heard again.

In response to the Fee spokesperson, “The Fee is just utilizing the instruments that platforms themselves are making obtainable to our company accounts – this was the case with the ‘Publish Composer’ instrument in X.” Post Composer is an advertising-oriented characteristic that lives below the “X Enterprise” umbrella.

⁠”We count on these instruments to be totally in step with the platforms’ personal phrases and circumstances, in addition to with our legislative framework,” the spokesperson stated.

When requested, the Fee didn’t make clear the way it was accessing Publish Composer if it was not paying for premium options, nor if it nonetheless has entry to them after the ban Bier claims he issued. The Fee’s X account has a grey checkmark, which is the verification badge for “governments and multilateral organizations.” According to X, “A few of these accounts could also be subscribed to Premium Organizations.” Two months in the past, X added further complexity to this by subdividing Premium Organizations into “Premium Enterprise” and “Premium Organizations.”

At any fee, the Fee spokesperson claimed of their remark that the Fee “all the time makes use of all social media platforms in good religion.”

If Gizmodo receives additional readability both from the Fee or X, we are going to replace this submit.