Regulators within the European Union are reportedly preparing to impose heavy fines on Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, for breaking the Digital Services Act (DSA), according to a report from four sources familiar with the matter. The penalties are expected to come in the form of a hefty fine of more than $1 billion and multiple demands for changes to the platform’s content moderation policies. The DSA is also expected to be the first major enforcement of stricter rules to fend off illegal content and disinformation online, whose official announcement is planned for summer.
Elon Musk’s close ties with former US President Donald Trump also make the move potentially a cause for tension between the EU and the United States. The EU-US relations are already strained over trade policies, tariffs, and other geopolitical conflicts, including the ongoing war in Ukraine, and the EU has been riled up by the US refusal to respond to European frustration on the issues. But with an exact amount of the fine still under discussion, sources said the EU’s intent was to make an example of X by warning any other tech company that temporarily avoided GDPR compliance that it would face severe consequences.
In December 2023, X was under investigation over false allegations that it failed to combat illegal content and engaged in information manipulation. To encourage this kind of behaviour and amplify the far right and a selection of key political figures, the algorithms on the platform might have been tweaked to award them, or it might be natural user behaviour. EU regulators had already ruled that X had broken the DSA rules in 2023, although the full judgment of the case has yet to be served.
But EU officials say the investigation is separate from trade tensions with the US. This rule, if it were finalized, would end up changing the way content regulation will be handled across digital platforms that operate in the European Union.
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