Khaberni - European Union technology regulators imposed a fine of 120 million euros ($140 million) on Elon Musk's social media company "X" for violating online content rules, marking the first penalty under a prominent European legislation that is likely to infuriate the US government.
Meanwhile, the "TikTok" platform avoided a fine after making concessions, according to "Reuters".
President Donald Trump's administration criticized Europe's stern campaign against major technology companies to ensure that smaller competitors could compete and offer consumers broader choices, stating that it targeted American companies and imposed censorship on Americans.
The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, stated that its laws do not target any nationality, and that they only work to protect its digital and democratic standards, which are often considered a model for the rest of the world.
The European Union's penalty on the X platform came after a two-year investigation under the Union's Digital Services Act, which requires online platforms to make more efforts to combat illegal and harmful content.
The European Union's investigation into the "TikTok" app, owned by the company "ByteDance", led to charges in May that the company violated a clause in the Digital Services Act, which requires them to publish an ad repository enabling researchers and users to discover fraudulent ads.
Henna Virkonen, Deputy Executive to the President of the European Commission for Technological Sovereignty, said that the modest fine imposed on the X platform was proportional and calculated based on the nature of the violations, their severity in terms of the number of EU users affected by them, and their duration.
Virkonen told reporters, "We are not here to impose the highest fines. We are here to ensure the application of our digital legislation, and if you comply with our rules, you will not be fined. It's very simple."
Virkonen stated, "I think it's very important to emphasize that the Digital Services Act has nothing to do with censorship."
She added that the expected decisions regarding companies that were charged with violating the Digital Services Act are expected to take less time compared to the X platform case, which lasted two years.
"Meta" and "TikTok" were charged in October with violating transparency requirements under the Digital Services Act, while the Chinese platform "Timo" was accused of violating rules preventing the sale of illegal products.
