Elon Musk is proving that Wicked’s Elphaba (aka the Wicked Witch of the West) was right: no good deed goes unpunished. Musk’s good deed was purchasing Twitter, which he renamed X, in order to restore the site to its origins as the internet’s leading free speech zone. Musk’s punishment for his good deed is a $140 million fine on X—imposed by European Union (EU) bureaucrats—for violating the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA).
X is subjected to the DSA’s strictest regulations because it is a “Very Large Online Platform” (VLOP). A VLOP is a platform that has over 45 million users per month. Other VLOP’s include Facebook, Apple, Google, Amazon, Booking.com, and TikTok. The fine is based on two alleged DSA violations. EU bureaucrats claim that X’s blue check verification feature facilitates the use of “misleading identities” because of X’s “deceptive design.” The EU attributes this to the change in the blue check feature from user verification to a paid system.
This should disturb anyone familiar with the role anonymous speech has played in American history. Many of the most influential works in American history were published anonymously—including Common Sense and both the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers. The Supreme Court upheld the right of anonymous speech and association in the case of NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449 (1958), which affirmed the NAACP’s right to keep its membership list confidential. Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote that, “inviolability of privacy in group association may in many circumstances be indispensable to preservation of freedom of association, particularly where a group espouses dissident beliefs.”
The EU also alleges that X’s advertising library, which contains information regarding how the platform determines which ads to recommend to their users, lacks transparency. This requirement is completely unnecessary. X is hardly the only online platform allowing individuals to share information. If users have a problem with the ads on X they can use another platform whose advertising policies better suit them.
X is also being investigated by the EU for allegedly violating the DSA’s provisions mandating VLOPs stop the spread of illegal content and “information manipulation.” The DSA does not specify what constitutes “illegal information manipulation” or illegal content. Instead, the DSA outlaws “any online speech that is incompatible with union law or with the law of any member state.”
The DSA also outlaws “hate speech.” The law helpfully (that was sarcasm) defines hate speech as speech “intended to incite hate.” This means any speech EU bureaucrats consider hateful. X is not the only VLOP to find itself in the EU’s crosshairs. (parent company of VLOPs Facebook and Instagram) are also being investigated for allegedly violating the DSA.
The TikTok investigation was closed the same day the EU announced sanctions against X because TikTok agreed to change its design in order to appease the EU. Henna Virkkunen, the Executive Vice President for Tech Sovereignty, commented, “we’re not here to impose the highest fines, we are here to make sure that our digital legislation is enforced. If you comply with our rules, you don’t get a fine.” In other words, the EU will make tech companies an offer they (think) the companies can’t refuse.
Most business owners would accept the EU’s offer. However, Elon Musk is not most CEOs. Musk posted on X that, “the EU should be abolished, and sovereignty returned to individual countries, so that governments can better represent their people.” Musk has the backing of the Trump Administration. After the fine was announced, Vice President JD Vance came to X’s defense. Federal Trade Commissioner Andrew Ferguson has also been outspoken about the dangers the DSA poses to American tech companies and social media users, and has told US companies that they should not apply the DSA to American citizens.
President Trump also weighed in, calling the decision “a nasty one” and saying “I don’t think it’s right.” President Trump, Vice President Vance, FTC Chair Ferguson, and the rest of the Administration should continue to highlight the DSA’s dangers and work with Congress to reduce federal spending on any program that benefits EU members. The FTC should also continue to work with U.S. tech companies to make sure no American’s rights are violated by the EU’s enforcement of its authoritarian Digital Services Act.
