“Mekić then found out that the ads, which have garnered at least 4 million views, were only displayed in seven EU countries: the Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, Finland, Slovenia, Portugal, and the Czech Republic.”
The European Commission bought X ads for its message-scanning law and showed them only in the seven countries that hadn’t backed it. The campaign launched the day after the Council met without enough support for the bill. It targeted by religion and political views, sensitive categories under EU data law, and filtered out people interested in Assange or Brexit. The same Commission sent X a DSA request about disinformation that very day. It was one of the advertisers.