Elon Musk is now calling for the dissolution of the European Union as a result of it fined him $140 million for violating a legislation he as soon as stated was “precisely aligned” together with his imaginative and prescient for (what was then referred to as) Twitter.
And he’s doing it by mendacity about what the fantastic is definitely for.
The EU hit X with a $140 million fine final week for violating the Digital Providers Act (DSA). However (regardless of what you’ll have heard) this isn’t some censorship overreach by Brussels bureaucrats. The violations—which have been known for over a year—don’t have anything to do with content material moderation. Zero. Anybody telling you in any other case is mendacity.
The fantastic is for 3 particular transparency failures: deceptive customers when Elon changed verification from precise verification to “pay $8 for a checkmark,” sustaining a damaged advert repository, and refusing to share required information with researchers.
The European Union has introduced a fantastic of $140 million towards Elon Musk’s X, the social media platform previously often known as Twitter, for a number of failures to adjust to guidelines governing massive digital platforms. A European Fee spokesperson stated the fantastic towards X’s holding firm was because of the platform’s misleading use of a blue check mark to determine verified customers, a poorly functioning promoting repository, and a failure to supply efficient information entry for researchers.
Once more, let’s repeat: it has nothing, by any means, to do with the best way X handles content material moderation or what speech it permits on its platform. As Daphne Keller explains:
Don’t let anybody — not even the US Secretary of State — inform you that the European Fee’s €120 million enforcement towards Elon Musk’s X below the Digital Service Act (DSA) is about censorship or about what speech customers can publish on the platform. That will, certainly, be attention-grabbing. However this fantastic is simply the EU implementing some regular, boring necessities of its legislation. Many of those necessities resemble present US legal guidelines or proposals which have garnered bipartisan assist.
There are three fees towards X, which all stem from a multi-year investigation that was launched in 2023. One is about verification — X’s blue checkmarks on consumer accounts — and two are about transparency. These fees don’t have anything to do with what content material is on X, or what consumer speech the platform ought to or mustn’t enable. There’s loads of EU political disapproval about these issues, for positive. However the EU didn’t select to select a struggle about them. As an alternative, it went after X for violating way more fundamental, simple provisions of the DSA. These violations have been flagrant sufficient that it could be bizarre if the EU hadn’t issued a fantastic.
Each Daphne and I’ve criticized makes an attempt by EU officers to abuse the DSA in pursuit of censorship. I directly called it out when former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton clearly went approach over the road final yr, a transfer that shortly led to Breton losing his job. I’ve been extremely vital of the DSA for years, so if this have been really an abuse of the legislation for censorship, I’d be first in line to name it out and aspect with Elon (I’ve done it in different circumstances as nicely).
However that is not that. This has nothing to do with “content material moderation” or “censorship” in any approach.
And but, Elon Musk is operating round pretending it’s a free speech concern, and his once-again mates within the Trump administration are bolstering that false declare.
As Daphne identified, the EU might examine sure features of X’s content material moderation, and that might result in severe questions on censorship and free speech. However they haven’t achieved so.
Actually, this transfer is little completely different than the Trump FTC taking motion towards a Chinese language firm for violating COPPA. Which it has done. Did we see Chinese language politicians lose their minds over that? Did we see the CEO of that firm, Apitor Expertise, name for dissolving the US like Elon Musk is now calling for dissolving the EU? No. No, we didn’t.
However as a result of the Elon Musks/JD Vances/Marco Rubios of the world can only think in terms of memes and culture wars, they know that if they only insist that that is about censorship, that the media will cowl it that approach, and the ignorant rabble on X will purchase their model of the story.
All that is much more unimaginable as a result of Elon Musk advised the EU that he was entirely on board with the DSA whereas he was within the course of of shopping for Twitter. Sure, the legislation he’s now claiming is censorship tyranny requiring the dissolution of a whole governmental physique is the exact same legislation he declared was “precisely aligned” together with his imaginative and prescient for the platform.
On the time, we called out how the EU was clearly taking part in Musk, who appeared to don’t have any clue what he was really endorsing. It was apparent he hadn’t learn or understood the DSA. However there he was, recording a video claiming excellent alignment with a regulatory framework he’s now treating as an existential risk to free speech.
So it’s fairly wealthy for him to whine about it now.
In fact, Musk isn’t simply misrepresenting the fantastic. He’s responding with a collection of escalating tantrums designed to feed his false censorship narrative. First, he referred to as for abolishing your entire EU:
Then got here the petty retaliation. First, he canceled the EU Commission’s X advertising account. X claimed it was as a result of they “exploited” X’s advert platform by posting a hyperlink that seemed to be a video, however replies to that tweet steered many, many individuals stated that claimed “exploit” was not an exploit in any respect, however a software that many others had used.
After that, Musk started threatening to punish EU Commissioners directly for the fantastic. In doing so he incorrectly references the Streisand Impact:
As the coiner of “The Streisand Impact,” I’d identical to to level out that this isn’t what the Streisand Impact means in any respect.
Every transfer—calling to dissolve the EU, canceling adverts, threatening people—is transparently designed to fabricate a free speech disaster the place none exists. It’s efficiency artwork for an viewers that received’t trouble checking whether or not the fantastic is definitely about censorship (it isn’t).
And he’ll possible maintain escalating with the assistance of the Trump administration.
The DSA definitely has some points, however this fantastic isn’t one among them. However that hasn’t stopped Elon Musk and his crew of political supporters from pretending that that is some large assault on American free speech. It’s not. Not more than the FTC’s fantastic towards Apitor was an assault on China-based speech.
However, in fact, a lot of the media will proceed to fake that is about free speech. They are going to body it that approach and for years into the longer term we’ll hear false tales—that the media and tons of different folks will merely settle for as true—that the EU fined X and Elon $140 million for not censoring folks.
That is the template now. Violate pretty modest rules, declare it’s censorship, get your political allies to amplify the lie, use it to de-legitimize any try at platform accountability for actively deceptive customers. It’s not about free speech. It by no means was. It’s about securing freedom from accountability whereas wielding the facility of each personal platforms and state sources to crush anybody who tries to impose it.
So yeah, anytime you hear somebody declare the EU fined Musk for not censoring folks, name it out. As a result of the reality issues, even when highly effective folks would favor you didn’t discover they’re mendacity.
Elon’s Crying Censorship Over An EU Fine That Has Nothing To Do With Censorship
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