According to Reuters, EU regulatory bodies had recently imposed a Euro120 million fine on Mask-owned social media X for violating online content regulations. This was the first penalty imposed by the European Union on the basis of the Digital Services Act (DSA) and once again provoked criticism by the United States Government.
Mask responded to “bullshit” under the tweets published by the European Commission on fines and transmitted several tweets critical of the decision. Mask considers this EU action to be an attack on X, harsh and unfounded.
The European Union has been criticized by the United States of America’s Omnibus Tremple for targeting American companies and vetting American citizens for its efforts to ensure that small firms can compete fairly and that consumers have more options. The European Commission responded that its laws were not aimed at any country but merely defended its own numerical and democratic standards. The penalty was derived from a two-year European Union investigation under the Digital Services Act, which required online platforms to enhance the treatment of illegal and harmful content. The European Union ‘ s investigation into TikTok under the byte-jumping flag made allegations in May this year that it had violated the DSA regulations on the publication of the Advertising Database, which should have allowed researchers and users to identify fraudulent advertisements. TikTok avoided punishment by undertaking to correct it.
Hanna Wilkunen, EU Technical Policy Manager, stated that the modest fine for X was proportionate and calculated on the basis of the nature of the violation, the severity of the impact on EU users and the duration. At the press conference, she stressed: “It is not our aim to impose high fines, but to ensure that digital regulations are enforced. As long as the rules are followed, they will not be fined. It must be made clear that DSA has nothing to do with censorship.” According to Wilkunen, other decisions against DSA in the future are expected to be shorter than the two-year investigation period for X. Both the United States Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, and the President of the Federal Communications Committee, Brendan Carl, condemned the EU fine. Lubiño wrote in X: “The EC fine of $140 million is an attack not only on X, but on all American technology platforms and the American people.” According to Carl X, the sanctions show that Europe is punishing an American technology company for its success. In October this year, Meta and TikTok were prosecuted for violating the DSA transparency obligations and Temu, the electrician platform, was charged with non-compliance with the provisions preventing the sale of illegal products. X now has 60 to 90 working days to present compliance measures, with a specific time frame depending on the type of problem. Prior to the publication of the EU decision, the Vice President of the United States, J.D. Vance, had written to X: “The rumour is that the European Commission will be fined hundreds of millions of dollars for not participating in the review. The EU should support freedom of expression and not attack United States enterprises for absurd reasons.”
TikTok is committed to improving the advertising database in order to increase transparency and urges regulatory bodies to enforce the law equally on all platforms. The EU regulatory bodies noted that X violations included the misleading design of the certified account number Blue V logo, the lack of transparency in the advertising database and the lack of access to public data for researchers. The European Commission indicated that the investigation into illegal content dissemination and information manipulation measures on platform X, as well as another survey on the design of the TikTok platform, the algorithm system and child protection obligations, were continuing. Under the DSA, fines can be up to 6 per cent of the enterprise ‘ s global annual income.