EU accepts Elon Musk’s X action plan to improve transparency

The European Commission has officially accepted a comprehensive action plan submitted by Elon Musk’s social media network, X (formerly Twitter), to comply with the transparency rules of the European Union's Digital Services Act (DSA).

The European Union, which fined Elon Musk's social media network X €120 million ($137.2 million) last year, said on Wednesday it had accepted an action plan by X to comply with transparency rules under the EU's Digital Services Act.

"The European Commission has accepted X's action plan to comply with transparency obligations and researchers’ access to data under the Digital Services Act,” it said in a statement.

"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."

The EU said X had committed to make sure that its action plan would be subjected to an external and independent audit.

It added that X now had six months to implement its action plan, and that the social media network would be subject to an enhanced supervision regime.

The decision marks a major step forward in resolving a highly publicized dispute between the tech billionaire and EU regulators.

It comes as Europe is tightening its restrictions on social media, with nations from Norway and France to Turkey and Britain debating or rolling out legislation to ban or limit teenage social media use, looking to Australia's early move for inspiration.