EU hits X with €120M fine for breaching the Digital Services Act
30 points by vincvinc 2 hours ago | 17 comments
  • tw04 2 hours ago |
    > "Europe is taxing Americans to subsidize a continent held back by Europe’s own suffocating regulations," Carr said.

    And America is taxing Americans via tariffs to subsidize a corrupt executive branch lining its own pockets. At least Europe is looking out for a whole continent. Not just a handful of grifters.

    • tock 32 minutes ago |
      Europe does tax its people a lot more. So the argument doesn't make sense.
      • kaveh_h 20 minutes ago |
        Taxes which are used wisely for the people’s benefit is not a wasteful thing. That was the point original commentator made.

        Your reasoning is that taxation is always bad and the more you pay the worst, a very American view which I can understand given how badly US government spends money in this regard.

  • ralph84 an hour ago |
    eurofounder and compliantvc having blue checks was probably the final straw.
  • Telaneo an hour ago |
    > "Deceiving users with blue checkmarks, obscuring information on ads and shutting out researchers have no place online in the EU," said European Commission Vice President Henna Virkkunen.

    I agree. Good EU!

    > Pre-empting the announcement on Thursday night, United States Vice President JD Vance that "the EU should be supporting free speech not attacking American companies over garbage."

    Sorry, but your garbage has influence outside the US. Keep it to yourself or clean up.

    Deception and fraud aren't even protected by the 1st Amendment, and the blue checkmark scheme being pay-to-win is definitely leaning that way, if not just straight up there. Seems the EU thought is just is.

    And if you care so much about free speech, maybe you should be more open about those ads of yours?

  • Aerroon an hour ago |
    Why can a company be fined for not allowing "researchers" access to data? That seems bizarre to me.
    • TheAceOfHearts 38 minutes ago |
      What's bizarre about it? There's lots of legislation that requires companies to report on various data or to provide access to auditors. It's legally valid.

      I think there's a compelling case to be made for requiring large social media platforms to provide data access to researchers, considering the platform's incredible ability to influence elections and society at-large.

    • embedding-shape 36 minutes ago |
      It's not "any company", it's exceptionally large platforms who can give insight into large societal questions and have enough influence to sway people's opinions. The data is technically public already, researchers could scrape it, but investigations has to be able to be done to ensure the platforms aren't used to intentionally steer people's opinion in a specific direction, since they're unable to self regulate that it seems.
    • alephnerd 14 minutes ago |
      A lot of people seem to be forgetting that the Cambridge Analytica scandal started off with data that was supposed to be used for research projects at the University of Cambridge being exfiltrated for commercial political use [0].

      That said, this is most likely a tit-for-tat by the EU against the Trump administration, because we live in a world where all countries (even the US) have now weaponized regulations for negotiating leverage.

      Our red line in both the Biden admin as well as the current admin was the DSA. The EU's red line is not being included in any negotiation over the Russia-Ukraine Conflict. The US fights against the DSA by arguing about infringement on free speech. The EU then tries to fight back over market competition. And it goes on and on and on.

      This is why a lot of businesses get antsy about trade wars.

      [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Ana...

  • briandw an hour ago |
    They changed the blue check from an exclusive club of the rich and popular, to just Ive got a paying account. How is that misleading? Why does the EU have a say about design choices?
    • jamesrr39 40 minutes ago |
      The blue check symbolised (symbolises) being verified, i.e. this account belongs to who it says it does. But it doesn't carry out any/sufficient checks to actually verify that.

      See also: https://x.com/jesus/status/1590405986925543424

      • briandw 5 minutes ago |
        [delayed]
  • mraduldeodhiya an hour ago |
    Crazy.
  • ChrisArchitect an hour ago |
  • SanjayMehta 40 minutes ago |
    Europe ran out of colonies, but not the colonial mindset.

    Now they're trying to recolonise the world with their regulations.

    • kaveh_h 8 minutes ago |
      Sounds more like SV technologist rulers are trying to conolise the world. Europe is less potent and threatening than even Elon at this point of time.
  • Longlius 34 minutes ago |
    I mean, is there really any reason to continue offering the service in Europe? I highly doubt the revenue is really worth the trouble.
    • kaveh_h 26 minutes ago |
      It’s not for profit. Elon put 45 billion dollars into it as a vehicle to influence even more people of the world particularly politicians.

      His open stance and clear support or rebuke of various political figures and parties around the world is a clear indication of this.