Perhaps you've heard: Europe has a bit of a censorship problem:
— The Immortal (@TheImmortal007) December 6, 2025
And they - in this case, the "European Union", the multinaitonal bureaucratic superstate - take that job pretty seriously.
The EU just dropped a $140 million fine on the social media platform "X" (formerly Twitter), and on CEO Musk personally.
Why?
The European Union has announced a fine of $140 million against Elon Musk's X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, for several failures to comply with rules governing large digital platforms. A European Commission spokesperson said the fine against X's holding company was due to the platform's misleading use of a blue check mark to identify verified users, a poorly functioning advertising repository, and a failure to provide effective data access for researchers.
We can let the bureaucrats explain it in their own words: among other counts:
X's use of the ‘blue checkmark' for ‘verified accounts' deceives users. This violates the DSA obligation for online platforms to prohibit deceptive design practices on their services. On X, anyone can pay to obtain the ‘verified' status without the company meaningfully verifying who is behind the account, making it difficult for users to judge the authenticity of accounts and content they engage with. This deception exposes users to scams, including impersonation frauds, as well as other forms of manipulation by malicious actors. While the DSA does not mandate user verification, it clearly prohibits online platforms from falsely claiming that users have been verified, when no such verification took place.
And, if you care about free speech in Europe, that may be the least of the.bad news; from the NPR story above:'
Nonetheless, the company could have faced far higher financial penalties, with European authorities able under new legislation — known as the Digital Services Act — to fine offenders 6% of their worldwide annual revenue, which in this case could have included several other of Musk's companies, including SpaceX.
The fine announcement follows months of accusations from activists and trade experts that authorities in Brussels were deliberately easing up on enforcement to appease Trump. Musk was a prominent supporter of Trump's campaign and spent several months this past spring serving as an administration adviser and the public face of the Department of Government Efficiency initiative.
Musk went big with his counterpunch:
The EU should be abolished and sovereignty returned to individual countries, so that governments can better represent their people
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 6, 2025
"The 'EU' imposed this crazy fine not just on [X], but also on me personally, which is even more insane!" the billionaire Tesla CEO wrote on X. "Therefore, it would seem appropriate to apply our response not just to the EU, but also to the individuals who took this action against me."
The episode is growing from a squabble over government control over a private company and over the speech the company enables, into a proxy battle between the EU and the Trump administration and the populist revolt against the EU:
While the fine was cautiously praised in Brussels and other European capitals, where officials had worried that the EU executive would bow to demands that it rein in its enforcement of U.S. tech firms, some European politicians more aligned with the U.S. agenda joined in on the criticism.
"Nobody elected you," wrote far-right Dutch firebrand Geert Wilders. "You represent no one. You are a totalitarian institution and can’t even spell the words freedom of speech. We should not accept the fining of [X], but abolish the [Commission]."
The fine was only the conclusion of the first part of the EU's probe into X, which will also look at the content circulated on the platform.
Pop your popcorn.
If you're betting, your choice is between people who reguliate interstate trade between Denmark and Portgual on the one hand, and a guy who built his own space program and car company on the other.
