European Union regulators on Friday said it is fining Elon Musk’s social media platform X $140 million (120 million euros) for violating regulations aimed at protecting internet users in the trading bloc from digital abuses.
The European Commission said that X breached “transparency obligations” under the Digital Services Act (DSA). The fine represents the EU’s first move to sanction a company for violating the law since the law was enacted in 2022.
In a statement issued Friday, the commission accused X of using its ‘blue checkmark’ in a way that deceives users. Anyone can pay to get the verification, making it hard for users to judge the authenticity of the accounts they engage with on the social media platform, the EU said. This could expose users to scams and “other forms of manipulation by malicious actors,” the commission noted.
The European Commission also took aim at X’s ads repository, which it said fails to meet accessibility requirements under the DSA. Internet 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 intended audience. That goal is to help researchers detect scams, fake ads and coordinated influence campaigns.
X has 60 days to tell the European Commission how it plans to address the group’s concerns.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr took issue with the fine and defended X. “Once again, Europe is fining a successful U.S. tech company for being a successful U.S. tech company,” he wrote on X Friday in a post shared by X owner Elon Musk.
X did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The DSA requires platforms to remove “illegal content,” among other restrictions, with companies that fail to comply at risk of hefty fines. The law has been a thorn in the side of American tech companies and members of the Trump administration, who claim the sweeping rule violates free speech.
During a speech in Munich this February, Vice President J.D. Vance said the EU’s content moderation policies amount to “authoritarian censorship,” according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonprofit think tank.
