X hit with $140M EU fine for breaching content rules | Hacker News Reader

X hit with $140M EU fine for breaching content rules

reuters.com

66 pointspogue104 comments

>"I think it's very important to underline that DSA is having nothing to do with censorship,"

Only under the EUs backwards idea that if it makes speech illegal it's not censorship.

>its failure to provide researchers access to public data.

I don't want my X posts being handed over to researchers even if they are technically public. On social media and chat platforms there is an expectation of the posts and chat messages you make to be private due to being in an obscure section of the website. Just look out the outrage over people's privacy that happens every time someone makes a public search engine of everyone's chat messages on a Discord that has an open invitation link. People's idea of privacy does not align with the idea that anything public should be widely spread with others.

The reason of the fine is, as stated by the article: EU regulators said X's DSA violations included the deceptive design of its blue checkmark for verified accounts, the lack of transparency of its advertising repository and its failure to provide researchers access to public data.

I hold back no criticism on free speech issues in eu (ie chat control) when it is correct to do so, but this case doesn't look like it

And it says that the investigation in regards to handle how they handle illegal content (speech they don't like) is still ongoing. So the potential fines over free speech are still upcoming.

Protected speech is what's covered by "free speech", not all speech. If you disagree with what specific areas of speech they find illegal, say so, be clear about it, rather than presupposing your views in your claims in an emotion evoking fashion (e.g. "speech they don't like").

It's extremely tiring to decipher takes like these and they're everywhere recently. It's supposed to be convincing, yet to read it without finding it jarring, I'd already need to agree with you. Makes no sense!

There is preexisting context that the US and EU disagree about what speech should be allowed.

That does exist, yes. And even in the US, there are categories of speech which are handled differently.

This is why mentions of "free speech" are inherently red herrings to me. It's an idea, a mirage, and a rather absolute one at that, especially under certain interpretations. It is something to get people ideologically motivated by and then used in my opinion. To me, it bears little difference to run of the mill marketing speak about agile and scrum, for example. Just like with code, the difference between idea and implementation is ever-shifting and never nil, sometimes intentionally so.

It is not helped by how someone can read the same situation very differently, which is the whole premise behind the "speech that you don't like" narrative in the first place, in the face of which loaded assertions fare really quite poorly: https://programmerhumor.io/backend-memes/ourblesseddepartmen...

> Elon Musk's social media company X was fined 120 million euros ($140 million) by EU tech regulators on Friday for breaching EU online content rules

This is what the article said. [edit, mostly wrong: "You gave the reason that was used for an investigation of TikTok, and I don't know where you got the blue check thing from."]

> I hold back no criticism on free speech issues in eu (ie chat control) when it is correct to do so, but this case doesn't look like it

edit: I got a bad load that cut off the end. What was actually said, however was,

> EU regulators said X's DSA violations included the deceptive design of its blue checkmark for verified accounts, the lack of transparency of its advertising repository and its failure to provide researchers access to public data.

Italics mine. The first line however, is about breaching "online content rules."

EU should just force X to sell to EU owners or get blocked.

I don’t think it will get blocked, but I do hope so. Seeing the damage mainstream social media causes to friends and family members, I believe nobody loses if it just gets blasted away.

> I don't want my X posts being handed over to researchers even if they are technically public.

Then X shouldn't make their business available in the EU, but because X wants EU users, they're participating in a market where they need to follow the law of the market. If you disagree with X's choice of participating in that market, you should vote with your wallet/attention.

> On social media and chat platforms there is an expectation of the posts and chat messages you make to be private due to being in an obscure section of the website

That might be, but the internet unfortunately doesn't work like that, they are public platforms, so the information there is treated as public information, which it is. If you make it invite-only, I understand the expectation of privacy and private conversation, but for platforms with open signup? Don't participate and share stuff you don't want to be public, it's kind of easy.

"Then X shouldn't make their business available in the EU"

Right... and maybe next the US won't let Europe have any IP space. It's the internet. A US business needs to be governed by US law, not whatever law that a user chooses to access their site from..

Would you accept or the opposite situation then? A foreign company operating in and violating US law?

> A US business needs to be governed by US law, not whatever law that a user chooses to access their site from

So if I run a business from a country where cocaine is legal, I should be able to sell to users in the US? Are you sure you thought this through? Seems you're letting your emotions get in the way of your reasoning.

Absolutely. A US user sends you money, you send them product.

US customs takes the product at the border, and if you transit the border expect to be arrested. Your customer should expect to be arrested as well.

Maybe you get put on a list so US banks can't send you money anymore too.

So same thing happens here, except we're talking packets, and going across wires. They got caught using illegal packets across wires in the country in question, so they get fined. If you have legal presence, then that entity gets the fine.

Makes perfect sense for me in both cases.

If they have presence, then yeah. You have to follow the laws everywhere you have presence. Otherwise you get arrested. (more or less)

That's why the EU requires presence in the EU, when you want to process EU data. This IS exactly what happens here.

If you don't have a presence in the EU, then the EU can't require anything of you.

X does have a presence in the EU though, because it wants to make money by selling EU citizens data.

That's not indication of presence. You can do that from across the border.

X does have presence in the EU, but it's because they have offices/employees, equipment, and accounts housed there.

The EU may say anyone who deals in the data of their citizens is subject to their jurisdiction, but enforcement on those entities without actual presence will be difficult.

> The EU may say anyone who deals in the data of their citizens is subject to their jurisdiction, but enforcement on those entities without actual presence will be difficult.

Not particularly difficult.

Like Brasil already did, and for similar reasons, the EU can go after everything Musk owns. Even with Tesla sales dropping, they're not zero. Starlink is currently available.

> Maybe you get put on a list so US banks can't send you money anymore too.

This is a good example, because the US government routinely passes laws that prevent people from transacting using the dollar system (which is basically the world financial system) and this is OK, but the EU requiring companies that operate in their market to obey different laws is not OK?

I don't really get the logic here, but perhaps I'm missing something.

This is pretty much the position of China when it comes to IP law. It's compelling in some senses, but notably the U.S. does not agree.

> A US business needs to be governed by US law, not whatever law that a user chooses to access their site from.

Why is that? I think you can reasonably argue that a user should enjoy the protections offered by law in the place they live.

They can, they just need to use the EU equivalent of <app> they want. No one is forcing EU residents to use <app>.

You've got it the wrong way around. No one is forcing X to operate in the EU. If they want to do that, they need to follow EU laws.

it can apply US law in the US, yes. in the EU, it needs to follow EU law.

To be fair, it's a relatively new concept for many American companies, that they need to follow the laws of the locations they operate in, some companies need a bit of a push to properly understand how the world outside of the US culture bubble works.

It's actually not. US companies are very used to it and frequently comply with local laws (e.g. in China and elsewhere). What's happening here is a vocal minority is trying to push for some notion of US dominance over other countries.

The current administration has openly stated their intent to bully selected countries they don't like in various ways, but especially when it relates to their ability to push US propaganda to foreign places via companies like X.

And US laws too because lets be honest, EU is a vassal state.

The current US admin oviously treats it as such, but the EU is 27* nations who don't want to be vassalised* and who work together* to project collective strength on par with the US and China.

* except possibly Hungary.

Pardon my ignorance, but I don't believe RIPE is a US organisation or branch of the US government.

Any attempts by the US government to assert control of a foreign non-profit entity such as RIPE is only going to end in tears. I suspect would also empower those pushing to balkanise the internet should the independence of RIPE or ARIN be violated.

I'm not sure region specific intranets is a future anyone should want.

> Any attempts by the US government to assert control of a foreign non-profit entity such as RIPE is only going to end in tears.

The irony of how blind you are. EU trying to enforce censorship laws on American companies will end in tears.

If those US companies operate in foreign countries, then yes they will be following the law in those countries or they won't be operating there. And no, the only tears flowing will be from those who don't understand how laws and borders work.

This has always been true. E.g. Google and others complying with Chinese laws, or not operating at all in places like Iran. X can simply cease operations in EU if they don't like it.

The issue is that these laws apply to sites that are accessible in the EU which is the default state of a site on the internet, and personally I would like to avoid a balkanization of the internet. I would like to see the US government protect our websites from the EU's laws. Especially when it involves a US citizen (eg. taking a US citizens data).

X could just refuse to pay European advertisers and not allow EU user to pay for its premium version. Here, problem fixed.

> The issue is that these laws apply to sites that are accessible in the EU which is the default state of a site on the internet

It doesn't though, it applies those laws if the entity in question happen to also be slurping up a bunch of user data and selling/using it for various purpose, something which requires intent and active work to do.

If they instead didn't do those things, these laws wouldn't apply to them in the first place. Random American HN users just having a website public on the internet without perverse tracking has nothing to worry about, and does not have to care about GDPR, EU rules or much else.

You are really mixing things here, tbh, not sure whether in good faith.

I see where this concern comes from. But I think people overinterpret the EU’s legislative agenda by focusing on which companies get fined. Since American firms dominate the global tech market, they naturally end up in the crosshairs more often. That can look like a racket if you disagree with the laws, especially given the size of the penalties.

I think a more mundane explanation, which I personally subscribe to, is that Europeans have different priorities than Americans. They don’t want the same trade-offs, and they’re willing to make certain business models economically unviable if they believe those models are harmful or in bad taste. US companies are disproportionately affected because they don't share those values. First amendment, etc.

From the outside, this can create the impression of "hidden motives": the stated reasons sound unconvincing, the effects fall heavily on US companies, and so people infer that the EU is targeting Americans. But really, I think we're just different. If US laws disproportionately burdened EU citizens, I’d expect Europeans to be equally upset. It's only natural. I'm sure few people in Europe would be thrilled to find out that GDPR doesn't apply to ChatGPT because they got involved in some copyright lawsuit in New York.

That said, there's always a mix of motivations. I'm personally not a fan of other EU initiatives, like the one on encryption, but I think GDPR and DSA mostly mirror what the average João wants. I'm not sure most people care that much about the geopolitics.

They also have different financial interests, as a group wholly unable to take the forefront of tech.

Unable? :-D

I don't think the EU would have issues with the site not using data from EU citizens without blocking access in any way. The issue is really the the X does want to have "costumers" from the EU and this will fall under EU jurisdiction.

The US government and its cronies use American social media as propaganda plateforms to saw disinformation and push counter factual narratives serving their interests. They have specifically targeted influencing elections in the recent past.

That's information war. We should probably ban on sight but as we are free countries, we put in place a regulatory framework and let the courts do their work.

You don't want balkanization of the internet? Tell your government to stop using it as a weapon.

From our perspective, it’s good to see the EU protect its citizens from US tech practices.

What they should do, actually, is sue the EU for harassment in the US, like 4chan and the kiwifarms did with the UK. And then the EU can start firewalling X. Firewall everything bad, age gate everything, throw up the great firewall of the EU. I need Brussels to protect my freedoms.

> Only under the EUs backwards idea that if it makes speech illegal it's not censorship.

The DSA does not create new categories of illegal speech.

What it does is try and make companies enforce it. There is a difference between the EU making EU citizens not say something and making a US company remove the speech they do not like.

There already exists extensive examples of in-platform content geo-fencing. YouTube is infamous for this. What prevents Twitter from employing a similar strategy?

I further disagree that the legal system should be turned into a swiss cheese of enforced and unenforced laws, although I will admit, that is entirely a principled preference on my part. I strongly believe that bad laws should (ideally) be repelled, not worked around.

The USA has new visa rules. People who want a visa need to mark their social media accounts as "public": https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/20...

I wouldn't have a problem with that, except for the hypocrisy here.

The EU is requiring transparency for *advertisers*.

> Only under the EUs backwards idea that if it makes speech illegal it's not censorship.

The EU makes a lot more sense when you think of it as the neo-Vatican super state power. A core aspect of this is asserting things makes them true.

> I don't want my X posts being handed over to researchers even if they are technically public.

Too bad, don't make them public then. I'm not sure where this idea came from that "free speech" also means "free of consequences", but it sure is pervasive. It's always been the case in every society for all time that you need to be careful what you say publicly. The modern notion of "free speech" is related to retaliation from the government, it doesn't grant you immunity from people reacting to your public speech, nor does it grant you some sort of ill-defined "public speech anonymity."

It’s only recently that free speech could result in government-backed NGOs and government-cozy media collaborating to have a private citizen nationally tarred and feathered, fired from their job, and issued death threats within hours of what they thought was a semi-private conversation. This is absolutely a new state of affairs.

In the past, news would travel—but slowly—and minor news about local citizens was not normally considered newsworthy in non-local markets unless it was extremely unusual and entertaining.

You mean how it happened with Charlie Kirk and all the posts about him, that led to people being tarred and feathered and losing their jobs?

Yes, exactly like that. Also random nobodies making crude jokes online, professors taking unpopular stances or refusing to adjust course materials for political reasons, individuals who argue with protesters, protesters who burn flags, Bibles, or Qurans, and citizens who simply express support for their preferred candidates.

You thought this was some kind of “gotcha” because you pegged me as a right winger opposing cancel culture. I support free speech, period.

X is likely losing money in the EU at this point, and complying with the rules would also cost them money and/or reputation. Maybe they should consider pulling out.

X is losing money everywhere

Maybe they should consider pulling out (from Earth) then

Yeah I reckon that's the only way to be sure

It put a cooperative president in power. What's that worth?

A "cooperative" president who could be manipulated by everyone, which is why he promoted Tesla cars in front of the White House but also reduced support for them, reduced fleet MPG requirements, thinks clinate change and renewables are scams, etc.

And then Musk had his falling out when he left DOGE.

Currently they are saying lovey dovey things about each other and Musk is having far more success working with regulatory agencies.

Think of it as the opposite of something like public transportation, which doesn't need to be profitable because it's a public good.

Public evil?

Press X to doubt...

If you sincerely think X/Twitter is turning anything remotely close to a profit then you are in a tiny minority.

One of X's aim is to influence elections. So losing money is obviously not important to them.

Musk wants his agitprop vector in Europe. He will pay the fine and attempt to maliciously comply.

Trillionaires don't buy mass media companies to make money, they do it to push propaganda.

This one in particular is both personally desperate for approval of his petty, narcissistic bullshit, and for trying to consolidate political power by amplifying and supporting authoritarian candidates (that are expected to quid-pro-quo him back).

> Maybe they should consider pulling out.

I leapfrogged this by pulling myself out from Twitter instead a while ago, and I can only recommend. And I don't mean this in the "in favor of Bluesky/Mastadon" sense.

There are some types of content that I did lose access to this way, but in retrospect it was worth it. I found that the cost-benefit for it is just not there, not for me at least.

I’m assuming they’re only losing money in the hard sense, not in the “soft” sense considering the unimaginable wealth that comes from manipulating millions of people.

X as a whole became more profitable than Twitter last year thanks to a huge surge in US Election traffic and reduction in operating costs.

> Its 2024 adjusted EBITDA nearly doubled Twitter’s best year

Revenue is up 20% in 2025 but profit is lower and revenue in general is still much lower than pre-Musk purchase due to lost advertising but it is still improving slowly. https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/x-formerly-twitter-saw...

In the UK there was a more serious drop in revenue https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/apr/15/x-twitter...

Not sure about EU

> and complying with the rules would also cost them money and/or reputation. Maybe they should consider pulling out.

Like when they "pulled out" of Brazil? When Musk said they were fighting for freedom, democracy, and the rule of law? Then X got blocked in Brazil, and they silently complied with everything that was against "freedom, democracy, and the rule of law" and stopped talking about it.

Why would they pull out? They can simply not pay the fine. Then the EU could either back down or be the bad guy that blocks X.com and seizes their operations in Europe.

Please, please. I hope they pull out ASAP!

Interesting discussion of the details of the rules and breaches here, from a "this isn't actually about content or censorship at all" perspective: https://bsky.app/profile/daphnek.bsky.social/post/3m7aqqnarm...

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46160196

A much better link. The underlying article there explains why they are being fined.

It would have been hilarious if they hit X with a $420M fine

Fortunately for Europeans, politicians and businesses in Europe don't seem to run on the new American "meme vibes" corporate culture. I'm glad we didn't import that, but probably just a question of when...

What is the joke here, I don't get it.

420 is a drug reference which Musk himself makes every so often.

$1m per character

I don't know anyone who supports this censorship agenda. These obtuse bureaucrats need to get fresh air.

Me, I do support it. Now you know somebody. And you should go look up the definition of censorship.

Censorship is exactly what this is. If the fine is paid or not Europe will still be filed with online scams. This is almost defamatory as to suggest that Europeans were defrauded by blue check marks while making no claim evidence or suggestion of injury. (no damages). In scientific terms it's confirmation bias

> Censorship is exactly what this is.

What of this is censorship?

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_...

Not a single word about removing anything in this.

It's technically not censorship. Just a massive fine for not censoring

This isn't too much different than the UK OFCOM doing the similar stunts of suing for Sanctioned Suicide and Kiwifarms for websites hosted in the US, and with no foreign stations of business.

I want to make no mistake - I personally think that Kiwifarms is absolutely gross with their harassment campaigns. But it does appear legal, and first amendment speech issue.

SaSu advocates for people who wish to commit suicide, a how-to. Its the final "my body, my choice" that every government wants to take away. So silencing is a thing. But again, 1fa issue.

https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/05/when-trolls-take-on-tyra...

https://sanctioned-suicide.net/

I don't see the issue tbh. Why should the UK (or the EU) care about US laws likenthe first amendment? Nobody is forcing them to offer their website to Europeans, a simple IP block of UK users would likely be enough to avoid any legal risks for your US website example.

"The Commission said X's verified accounts which carry a blue checkmark do not correspond to industry practice and negatively affect users' ability to make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of the accounts they interact with"

I think X is in the wrong here, the blue checkmark usually means the identity has been verified, in other social media, but also historic twitter.

Nowadays on X it only means that a fee has been paid, it's used for scams, some even claim to be Elon Musk or official twitter announcements, which is very ironic.

Why is it so low? When will big corps get jailed for their actions?

What actions ?

You should probably read the article.

I read the article it's about blue check marks, I'm replying to a comment that says that the fine should be higher and should apply to more people? Is he really suggesting blue check marks as the action requiring more than 120 million dollar fine and be applied to more big corps ? Which big corps and what specifically are their "blue check marks" action that warrants bazillion dollar fines?????

> I read the article it's about blue check marks,

Why lie so blatantly? This is what was in the article:

> EU regulators said X's DSA violations included the deceptive design of its blue checkmark for verified accounts, the lack of transparency of its advertising repository and its failure to provide researchers access to public data.

Can you count? I count three distinct claims, not one.

So what is a reasonable fine and who are the other big corps ?????

Good thing you mention that, that is also all stated in the article. Whole lotta words in there!

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