On Saturday, X says it slapped the European Commission with a ban on its X ad account over what it has deemed a rule violation. Coincidentally enough, the European Commission 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 necessary data disclosures.
But the European Commission says it doesn’t pay for ads on X anyway—a Commission policy that has stood for over two years.
According to an X post by X head of product Nikita Bier, the European Commission’s tweet announcing the fine was itself deceptive. Bier says there’s an exploit in the X ad composer, and that the European Commission used it “to post a link that deceives users into thinking it’s a video and to artificially increase its reach.”
The irony of your announcement:
You logged into your 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… https://t.co/ziuhUOimOT
— Nikita Bier (@nikitabier) December 6, 2025
The European Commission’s post does have a video in it:
Today, we fined X for non-compliance with transparency obligations under the DSA.
We’re holding X accountable for:
🔹Deceptive design of its ‘blue checkmark’
🔹Lack of transparency of its advertising repository
🔹Failure to provide access to public data for researchers
↓
— European Commission (@EU_Commission) December 5, 2025
However, a Commission spokesperson pointed out to Gizmodo that the European Commission announced a policy of not advertising on X back in 2023, as well as a suspension of all other paid services. “The suspension still applies,” the spokesperson said.
The European Commission’s post has what appears to be an overlaid play button at the start, but it autoplays a video—and this is no different from the rather puzzling way video posts on X seem to work in normal circumstances, such as in this video post from Kawasaki. In our tests, on desktop the play/pause function implied by the play button image on the Commission’s post works normally.
© Screenshot from X
On mobile, however, the play/pause function is broken in our tests. Instead of pausing the video, it takes the user to the European Commission’s press release about its fine against X. It’s not clear whether or not this is the issue that concerns X’s Nikita Bier. Gizmodo reached out to X for clarity about this multiple times, but has not heard back.
According to the Commission spokesperson, “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.” Post Composer is an advertising-oriented feature that lives under the “X Business” umbrella.
”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 said.
When asked, the Commission didn’t clarify how it was accessing Post Composer if it was not paying for premium features, nor if it still has access to them after the ban Bier claims he issued. The Commission’s X account has a gray checkmark, which is the verification badge for “governments and multilateral organizations.” According to X, “Some of these accounts may be subscribed to Premium Organizations.” Two months ago, X added further complexity to this by subdividing Premium Organizations into “Premium Business” and “Premium Organizations.”
At any rate, the Commission spokesperson claimed in their comment that the Commission “always uses all social media platforms in good faith.”
If Gizmodo receives further clarity either from the Commission or X, we will update this post.
