The US government has moved to join X, Elon Musk’s social media platform, in the company’s appeal of the European Commission’s €120 million fine at the EU General Court in Luxembourg, if the court approves its request to intervene. That filing pulls Washington directly into a major transatlantic fight over the European Union’s Digital Services Act.
The Justice Department, with backing from the State Department, says the case shows EU digital rules pressing down on US-led innovation through what it calls “regulatory overreach.” In its view, the effects won’t stop with X. Other American platforms, including Meta, Google, and Microsoft, could be hit too.
The roughly $137 million penalty, the first major Digital Services Act sanction since the law fully took effect in February 2024, was tied to three findings from the European Commission: X’s paid blue checks misled users, its ad database was incomplete, and researchers were given too little access to public data. Under the DSA, fines can reach 6% of global turnover.
For anyone who follows US-EU tech policy, this is a case to keep an eye on. X says its February appeal centers on an investigation that was incomplete and superficial, a reading of the DSA that distorts the law, and a process that denied the company the right to defend itself. The implication is bias.
You can track the case in Luxembourg, where this broader US-EU clash now stretches into the Digital Markets Act cases against Apple and Meta as well. Donald Trump has called EU fines “overseas extortion,” and JD Vance has called the DSA’s moderation rules “authoritarian censorship.”
Author: Manuel Bosque
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"pt-BR": "Manuel Bosque cobre software na Softonic: programas para desktop, ferramentas de produtividade e pequenos utilitários que resolvem bem um problema só. Seu critério é prático — o que um programa realmente faz, o que pede em troca e para quem serve — e por isso desconfia de listas de recursos e prefere testar. Faz parte da equipe que define como o software é abordado no site e trabalha diariamente com ferramentas de IA aplicadas à produção editorial."
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