EU hits X with $140m fine for breaking digital rules

The European Union (EU) on Friday imposed a 120-million-euro ($140-million) fine on Elon Musk’s X for violating its digital rules.

Imposing the first-ever fine under its powerful Digital Services Act (DSA) on content, the EU said it was hitting X for non-compliance with transparency rules including through the “deceptive design” of its blue checkmark.

Announcing the fine, EU chief Henna Virkkunen told reporters that “this decision is about the transparency of X” and “nothing to do with censorship”.

The high-profile probe into the social media platform was seen as a test of the bloc’s resolve to police Big Tech – and United States Vice President JD Vance fired a bullish warning against “attacking” U.S. firms through “censorship” before the penalty was even made public.

The vice president warned the EU on Thursday it “should be supporting free speech not attacking American companies over garbage” – in an X post to which Musk replied “Much appreciated.”

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Musk’s platform was the target of the EU’s first ever formal DSA investigation launched in December 2023 – and was preliminarily found to have breached its rules on several counts in July 2024.

The European Commission took issue with the check system introduced after Musk took over what was then Twitter in 2022 – since it meant anyone could pay for a label intended as a badge of authenticity.

Its probe also found X failed to be sufficiently transparent about its advertising and give researchers access to public data in line with the DSA’s rules, according to AFP.

X remains under investigation over how it tackles the spread of illegal content and information manipulation – with those parts of the probe yet to conclude.

The Star