E. Musk got into trouble in Europe: what should you pay attention to when using the social network “X”? | Business

According to Justina Antropik, head of social media and digital content at Tele2, these allegations will make users more cautious regarding content on the social network.

There were accusations

European Union authorities have accused social network X of using fraudulent “dark activity patterns” that potentially mislead users. According to the EU’s preliminary findings, such practices may violate new social media rules set out in the Digital Services Act.

“Simply put, ‘dark operating patterns’ are unethical platform design decisions designed to trick users into taking actions they would not otherwise take, such as purchasing goods or subscribing to services.” In such ways, users are manipulated so that they make decisions beneficial to service providers,” says J. Antropik.

According to her, such patterns of deception can appear in the content stream as a call to buy popular items as soon as possible because they will be gone. Also as cloaked ads, an attempt to trick users into clicking on ads that look like accounts but actually lead to advertised pages. Another trick is tricking users into subscribing to certain services that are difficult to unsubscribe from.

Tele2’s head of social networks and digital content points out that “dark activity patterns” are not just a practice on one platform.

“This can take many forms, the most common being that user-friendly choices are hard to find and brand-friendly action seems like the only option.” Such flaws in the platform’s design are not transparent to users,” says J. Antropik.

Also noticed other suspicious solutions

An investigation by the European Commission also revealed that X uses other practices believed to be misleading. One of them is the accounts marked with a blue check mark (“verified”).

Previously, only accounts whose owners’ identities were verified might be marked with this symbol on the platform. Most often, the accounts of famous people, content creators, large organizations, and companies were marked with blue ticks.

“Following the changes to the platform, any X user can now have a blue tick symbol on their account for just $8 a month. This, according to data published by Forbes, has caused dissatisfaction among some users – they can no longer rely on this symbol as a sign of authenticity and reliability,” says Tele2. head of social media and digital content.

Mr. Antropik advises to always maintain criticality when using “X” and other social networks – to check suspicious information in other sources as well, not to click on unreliable links, to purchase goods or services and to subscribe only following assessing their necessity and purchase conditions.