Elon Musk’s X has launched a legal challenge against the European Commission’s decision to impose a €120 million fine on the platform, citing “prosecutorial bias”.
The social media giant filed February 16 an appeal at the General Court of the European Union, challenging the fine imposed by the European Commission December 5 last year, the first “non-compliance” fine issued under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA).
The European Commission in issuing the fine said that X was in breach of transparency obligations under the DSA, and cited as justification what it described as the “deceptive design of its ‘blue checkmark'”; a “lack of transparency of its advertising repository”; and “failure to provide access to public data for researchers”.
“This EU Decision resulted from an incomplete and superficial investigation, grave procedural errors, a tortured interpretation of the obligations under the DSA, and systematic breaches of rights of defence and basic due process requirements suggesting prosecutorial bias,” X said in a statement posted online following the appeal.
“This landmark case is the first judicial challenge to a DSA fine and could set important precedents for enforcement, penalty calculations, and fundamental rights protections under the 2022 regulation,” the statement reads, adding that “X remains committed to user safety and transparency while defending our users’ access to the only global town square”.
X is supported in its legal challenge by free speech advocacy organisation, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International, whose Senior Counsel, Dr Adina Portaru, said that “if the Commission’s concentration of power goes unchallenged, it will further cement a highly problematic standard for speech control across the EU and beyond”.
“X is being targeted by the European Commission because it is a free speech platform. Social media platforms are today’s public square, and the DSA threatens speech in that public square.
“X is where millions of people go to freely express their views. This is a crackdown on X by authorities who view a free speech platform as a serious threat to their total control of online narratives. By targeting X, they are targeting the free speech of individuals across the world who simply want to share ideas online free from censorship,” Dr Portaru said.
“It’s no surprise that the company and its owner Elon Musk were landed with the first ever DSA fine.”
The DSA has become a flashpoint between the United States and Europe, with the Trump Administration and the House Judiciary Committee arguing in recent months that the legislation enables the European Commission to impose a global censorship regime that affects American companies and internet users.