Elon Musk’s X, formerly known as Twitter, has received a $139 million fine by the European Commission.
The penalty is the first-ever issued under the content moderation laws and was issued today (December 5) to the social media site, Politicoconfirmed. Plans to fine X were aired earlier this year, which prompted vice president JD Vance to suggest the EU should not follow through with a “garbage” notion of fining “free speech”.
The EU Commission confirmed that X was in breach of their transparency obligations, with the fine sent to X because of a “deceptive” change of how blue check verification worked. The European Commission’s Executive Vice President for Tech Sovereignty Henna Virkkunen said it was not about the highest fines possible, but about making sure appropriate changes were considered and made.
Virkkunen said, “We’re not here to impose the highest fines, we’re here to make sure that our digital legislation is enforced. If you comply with our rules, you don’t get a fine.” They added the fine was “proportionate” to the value of the company, with DSA regulations meaning a maximum fine of 6% of a company’s worth can be issued.
While the fine may not come as a surprise to X, vice president JD Vance warned the EU Commission that they should not be taking aim at Musk’s website, something the tech billionaire made clear he did not appreciate.
Vance wrote, “Rumors swirling that the EU commission will fine X hundreds of millions of dollars for not engaging in censorship. The EU should be supporting free speech not attacking American companies over garbage.” Musk replied, “Much appreciated.”
Virkkunen would respond to Vance’s comments, saying, “The DSA is having not to do with censorship, this decision is about the transparency of X. On this subject, we have agreed to disagree with the way that some people in the U.S. look at our legislation.”
“It’s not about censorship, and we have repeated several times from this podium, so on this we really agree to disagree on how it is perceived.”
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