DSA ENFORCEMENT: X/Twitter has submitted potential reforms to its blue check system to the EU Commission. The Commission fined the company €120 million in 2025 for DSA compliance failures, among them, for “deceptive design practices” relating to the platform’s user verification system. The Commission is currently reviewing the company’s proposal. X continues to appeal the fine to the EU’s General Court.
AMERICA: The US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has issued a cable directing embassies to “use X” to counter “Anti-American propaganda”. The Cable lays out a sweeping set of instructions for how embassy staff should push back against what it describes as coordinated foreign efforts to undermine American interests abroad. This comes as the Washington Post reports that Vice President JD Vance ordered staff to investigate how EU regulators censor online speech. However, the report concluded that “There is no evidence that Member States of the European Union are overreaching the DSA to censor and criminalise online content”.
ONLINE SAFETY ACT: The British government is moving forward with changes to its Online Safety Act, which would give ministers wide-ranging powers to alter the terms of the Act. The changes have been included in parts of unrelated legislation moving through the houses, and would give ministers sweeping powers, including over AI content, age verification and the banning of VPNs. Experts are concerned about both the changes and the manner in which they are being introduced without proper parliamentary oversight.
OVERSIGHT BOARD: Meta is debating ending funding for its Oversight Board after 2028. Launched in 2020, the board was seen as a “supreme court” overseeing the platform’s decision-making process. The board has faced criticism for lacking any meaningful authority to enforce its decisions. This news comes as the board released a report criticising the company’s decision to shift its content moderation system to a community notes basis.
SPYWARE: The Irish government’s proposal to legalise Garda use of spyware has come under scrutiny from both the ICCL and Digital Rights Ireland. The Communications (Interception and Lawful Access) Bill, which will update Ireland’s existing surveillance law dating back to 1993, aims to apply “to all forms of communications,” including the content of encrypted messages on apps such as Signal and WhatsApp. This new law will give (Garda) police The new law would give the police a set of new powers without clear oversight. There is no separate legislative basis or oversight of intelligence, so this would lead to a very unclear division between criminal investigation, law enforcement and intelligence gathering, according to Olga Cronin from the ICCL
RESEARCH: And finally a new paper by A Marwick et all ‘Disinformation as Cultural Narrative: Conceptualising Disinformation as Cross-Platform, Identity-Affirming, Cathartic Stories’ offers compelling evidence to conceptualise disinformation as narrative in a culturally contextualised framework, rather than as incorrect facts. And argues that such a framework is necessary to understand how disinformation spreads and the most effective counter-disinformation interventions. ,
