Elon Musk's social platform X has appealed a $140 million European Union fine, escalating a first-of-its-kind case under the bloc's Digital Services Act that tests how far regulators can go in policing platform design, ad transparency, and researcher access.
X said Friday that it filed an appeal at the General Court of the European Union to challenge an approximately $140 million penalty imposed by the European Commission in December.
The company's Global Government Affairs team called the EU action the product of an "incomplete and superficial investigation" and cited "grave procedural errors," a "tortured interpretation" of DSA obligations, and "systematic breaches of rights of defense and basic due process requirements suggesting prosecutorial bias."
The European Commission has said X breached DSA transparency obligations tied to the design of its "blue checkmark," the transparency of its advertising repository, and access to public data for researchers.
EU officials have argued that X's shift to a paid verification model made it harder for users to judge whether accounts were authentic, and that ad and data-access shortcomings undermined oversight of the platform.
The commission opened formal proceedings against X in December 2023 to assess whether the platform may have breached the DSA in areas including risk management, content moderation, dark patterns, advertising transparency, and data access for researchers.
The EU has also opened a separate DSA investigation into Grok and X's recommender systems, saying it will examine whether X properly assessed and mitigated risks linked to Grok's functionalities, including risks related to illegal content such as manipulated sexually explicit images, including content that may amount to child sexual abuse material.
X said its appeal is the first judicial challenge to a DSA fine and "could set important precedents for enforcement, penalty calculations, and fundamental rights protections" under the regulation.
The company added that it remains committed to "user safety and transparency" while defending users' access to what it called "the only global town square."
U.S. officials, including Vice President JD Vance, have criticized the EU's approach to online speech regulation and other critics have warned that enforcement could chill expression beyond Europe's borders.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr frames the DSA as a threat to free speech and as incompatible with U.S. free speech tradition, a concern commonly presented as extraterritoria overreach.
Large platforms such as X often run a single product and a single set of moderation and verification rules worldwide. Critics argue that forcing EU compliance can push platforms to tighten speech and content policies not just for EU users but across the service as a whole.
Jeremy Tedesco, Alliance Defending Freedom's senior counsel and senior vice president of corporate engagement, said in a Friday statement: "The EU Commission is targeting X for a simple reason: X is committed to free speech, and the Commission demands censorship."
Reuters contributed to this report.
Jim Thomas ✉
Jim Thomas is a writer based in Indiana. He holds a bachelor's degree in Political Science, a law degree from U.I.C. Law School, and has practiced law for more than 20 years.
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