Musk Tells EU He Looks Forward to ‘Very Public Battle In Court’ As X Faces Fines For ‘Deceptive’ Verification
A defiant Elon Musk on Friday vowed a “very public battle in court” after the European Union warned X that it could face severe fines for violating regulations aimed at combatting misinformation.
Thierry Breton, the EU’s commissioner for internal market, tweeted on Friday that X’s blue-check verification system “deceives users.” He added that “now X has now the right of defence —but if our view is confirmed we will impose fines & require significant changes.”
Musk replied, saying, “We look forward to a very public battle in court, so that the people of Europe can know the truth.” In a separate more conspiratorial sounding post, the Tesla billionaire added, “The European Commission offered 𝕏 an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us. The other platforms accepted that deal. 𝕏 did not.”
We look forward to a very public battle in court, so that the people of Europe can know the truth https://t.co/nKBGEPxeEa
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 12, 2024
The Guardian reported on the EU’s move to take action against X, writing, “The EU’s executive arm said X had breached the act in three areas: deceiving users by giving blue ticks – previously a way to signal an account’s reliability – to untrustworthy accounts; failing to give researchers access to publicly available data such as posts; and running an inadequate advertising library, which prevents researchers from scrutinising ads, including deliberately misleading ones, on the platform.”
If the EU were to pursue action against X, it would be the first time that the Digital Services Act, which European media calls a “sweeping set of regulations that requires platforms to take more responsibility for protecting their European users and cleaning up harmful or illegal content and products on their sites, under threat of hefty fines.”
The Guardian noted that the EU has “opened proceedings under the act against TikTok and Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta” under the DSA as well.
