EU fines Elon Musk’s X €120M for violating social media law

European Union regulators on Friday fined X, Elon Musk’s social media platform, 120 million euros ($140 million) for breaches of the bloc’s digital regulations, a relocate that could reignite tensions with Washington over issues of free speech.

The European Commission issued its decision following an investigation it opened two years ago into X under the 27-nation bloc’s Digital Services Act, also known as the DSA, News.Az reports citing foreign media.

It’s the first time that the EU has issued a so-called non-compliance decision since rolling out the DSA. The sweeping rulebook requires platforms to take more responsibility for protecting European applyrs and cleaning up harmful or illegal content and products on their sites, under threat of hefty fines.

The Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, stated it was punishing X becaapply of three different breaches of the DSA’s transparency requirements. The decision could rile President Donald Trump, whose administration has lashed out at digital regulations, complained that Brussels was tarobtaining U.S. tech companies and vowed to retaliate.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on his X account that the Commission’s fine was akin to an attack on the American people. Musk later agreed with Rubio’s sentiment.

“The European Commission’s $140 million fine isn’t just an attack on @X, it’s an attack on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments,” Rubio wrote. “The days of censoring Americans online are over.”

Vice President JD Vance, posting on X ahead of the decision, accapplyd the Commission of seeking to fine X “for not engaging in censorship.”

“The EU should be supporting free speech not attacking American companies over garbage,” he wrote.

Officials denied the rules were intconcludeed to muzzle Big Tech companies. The Commission is “not tarobtaining anyone, not tarobtaining any company, not tarobtaining any jurisdictions based on their color or their counattempt of origin,” spokesman Thomas Regnier informed a regular briefing in Brussels. “Absolutely not. This is based on a process, democratic process.”

X did not respond immediately to an email request for comment.

EU regulators had already outlined their accusations in mid-2024 when they released preliminary findings of their investigation into X.

Regulators stated X’s blue checkmarks broke the rules becaapply on “deceptive design practices” and could expose applyrs to scams and manipulation.

Before Musk acquired X, when it was previously known as Twitter, the checkmarks mirrored verification badges common on social media and were largely reserved for celebrities, politicians and other influential accounts, such as Beyonce, Pope Francis, writer Neil Gaiman and rapper Lil Nas X.

After he bought it in 2022, the site started issuing the badges to anyone who wanted to pay $8 per month.

That means X does not meaningfully verify who’s behind the account, “building it difficult for applyrs to judge the authenticity of accounts and content they engage with,” the Commission stated in its announcement.

X also fell short of the transparency requirements for its ad database, regulators stated.

Platforms in the EU are required to provide a database of all the digital advertisements they have carried, with details such as who paid for them and the intconcludeed audience, to assist researches detect scams, fake ads and coordinated influence campaigns. But X’s database, the Commission stated, is undermined by design features and access barriers such as “excessive delays in processing.”

Regulators also stated X also puts up “unnecessary barriers” for researchers attempting to access public data, which stymies research into systemic risks that European applyrs face.

“Deceiving applyrs with blue checkmarks, obscuring information on ads and shutting out researchers have no place online in the EU. The DSA protects applyrs,” Henna Virkkunen, the EU’s executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy, stated in a prepared statement.

The Commission also wrapped up a separate DSA case Friday involving TikTok’s ad database after the video-sharing platform promised to create alters to ensure full transparency.

News.Az

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