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The only way to force fine payment is to threaten with a ban otherwise. If Twitter doesn't pay the fine, what does the EU do?

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Sue them? The EU has a number of court systems. And in quite a lot of circumstances EU judgements are enforceable in the US. https://iclg.com/practice-areas/enforcement-of-foreign-judgm...

I believe in France the fine is felt and companies like Twitter comply with the rules. Whereas in the U.S. a fine is expensed as part of the cost of doing business and rules are broken repeatedly. Worse case is a long battle in the courts and after more than a decade they settle out of court for a little money and noone is held responsible.

They could go the US route and threaten kidnapping and/or assassination of the CEO.

You are referring to Alstom guy right ? Straight up kidnapping indeed.

Frédéric Pierucci. There's also that Huawei woman...Meng Wanzhou?

What is right for the US must be right for the EU, right?

Seize any assets within the EU. Likely get into 'contempt of court' situation - which might prevent any executives travel to any EU country. To my knowledge there is no* such precedent so far, though. (edited*)

Can you name that precedent? Would be interesting to know

Is there a precedent for it not happening, i.e. a company being court-ordered to pay a fine and just deciding not to pay it without consequences?

cant type: on = no

Fine them more ? No but seriously, legal consequence are not always backed by a army threat.

Twitter want to be in good standing in regard to the laws.

Why would they bother pay taxes at all anywhere otherwise ?

Go after executives? Or, assuming Twitter will be private one day, after the owner(s)? Freeze assets? Go through the WTO and US authorities?

No; that was the US does. See Alstom French CEO jailed in the US because he wanted to sell to Chinese and not GE.

i doubt America would back that since at that point twitter is doing nothing illegal here. just refusing to block eu citizens. similar to how extradition generally requires something being a crime in both countries.

Not blocking certain users in a jurisdiction where these blocks are required by law is, by definition, illegal. Obviously, some countries have more power to enforce those things than others. Also obviously, the EU is among the front runners of power to be able to enforce those things. And I am fairly sure the US won't start a trade war over Twitter the way the EU and the US did over Airbus and Boeing.

no it's not, because the internet doesn't require you to be present in some place so you are not subject to that jurisdiction. i do not recognize the jurisdiction of a country to demand a block of its citizens from a company located in an entirely different nation, and i doubt American courts would either.

like imagine i host a human rights site. if iran says it is illegal for me to provide access to content supporting womens rights to iranian citizens, it is not "illegal" for me to continue doing so because i am American, i live in America, and i operate only by American laws. America would not extradite me to iran for failing to comply with their internet rules.

Fair enough, unless you choose to operate in, e.g., Iran. Now you have options:

1) follow Iranian law

2a) not follow Iranian law and be blocked

2c) not follow Iranian law, circumvent any blocking and be prosecuted

2c obviously wont matter much in the case of Iran, in other cases it might. And while the US wont extradite you, other countries might. And there is still the option of abusing Interpol and red notices, again maybe not a problem in case of Iran and US internet co executives.

You know who thought the same way you do? German citizen living in NZ Kim Dotcom. You know who disagreed? The US DoJ. Would be about time if other countries would do the same to certain US entities, wouldn't it?

See : the spying allegation issues by the US against a French CEO of Alstom. He went straight to jail.

It’s fairly commonly recognized it’s was a ploy to force the sell of Alstom to GE, as opposed to a Chinese joint venture

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