The \u201cbureaucratic monster\u201d that has just fined X \u20ac120 million is wrapping its tentacles around free speech<\/p>\n
The EU has once again strayed beyond acceptable boundaries, slapping Elon Musk\u2019s social media platform X with harsh penalties for being in violation of new draconian EU digital laws that many say are code for censorship.
\nOn Friday, the European Commission unleashed the billionaire tech mogul\u2019s wrath after it fined X \u20ac120 million (about $140 million) for \u201cbreaching its transparency obligations\u201d under the 2022 Digital Services Act, which sets standards for accountability and content moderation. The ruling by the 27-nation bloc called the platform\u2019s blue checkmark system \u2018deceptive\u2019 and accused it of weak advertising transparency and failing to provide required data access.
\nIn response, Musk had his own \u2018X-it\u2019 moment when he called for the abolition of the EU and the return of national sovereignty to its 450 million subjects. In a series of blistering posts on the weekend, Musk argued that \u201cEU bureaucracy is slowly smothering Europe to death.\u201d
\n\u201cThe EU should be abolished and sovereignty returned to individual countries, so that governments can better represent their people,\u201d Musk wrote, calling the bloc a \u201cbureaucratic Monster.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
Musk calls for abolition of EU<\/p>\n
Musk\u2019s opponents say he is just overreacting to the fine. They argue that the penalty is a drop in the bucket for the richest man on the planet, representing just 6% of X\u2019s $2.3 billion in projected advertising revenue for 2025, and a minuscule amount of Musk\u2019s total worth (the EU initially planned to include all of Musk\u2019s holdings as targets for fines, which would have brought many billions into EU coffers). While that may be true, it\u2019s the principle and precedent that people should be concerned about. That\u2019s exactly how bureaucracy slowly strangles its unsuspecting victim \u2013 it starts off slowly and unoffensively and before long the tentacles have extended in all directions. Once the \u201cbureaucratic monster\u201d of the EU gets a taste of imposing its formidable will on social media companies, there will be no end to the bureaucratic red tape and secret back-door demands. As of November 2025, the European Commission has started 14 investigations into DSA compliance. As a result, serious criminal charges against social media companies and their owners may be forthcoming.
\nTelegram co-founder Pavel Durov knows a lot about the long arm of the EU\u2019s bureaucratic machine and the grave threats it poses. In August 2024, Durov was arrested after landing at Le Bourget Airport in France and eventually indicted on 12 charges, including complicity in the distribution of child pornography material and narcotics, extremely serious and vile charges that turned out to be false. Was the Russian-born entrepreneur targeted because he refused to play ball? It seems very possible.
\nDurov, who was facing 20 years in a French prison, made a startling claim that the head of France\u2019s foreign intelligence agency Nicolas Lerner asked him to ban Romanian conservatives ahead of the country\u2019s elections, a request he says he flatly refused. Durov noted that he hadn\u2019t silenced groups related to the political opposition or protests in any country, and \u201cwasn\u2019t about to start now.\u201d
\nThe response by the French intelligence agency to Durov\u2019s allegation was absolutely chilling. It confirmed that \u201cindeed, they were forced to contact Pavel Durov directly several times in recent years to remind him of his company\u2019s responsibility to prevent threats of terrorism and child pornography,\u201d but it \u201cstrongly denies the allegations that in these cases there were requests to ban accounts in connection with an electoral process.\u201d
\nThere seems little reason to believe that Durov, who said that Telegram moderators take down \u201cmillions\u201d of potentially harmful posts every single day, would have had anything to gain by fabricating the incident. But what is extremely unsettling about France\u2019s response is how easy it is to toss around explosive words like \u201cterrorism\u201d and \u201cchild pornography\u201d to achieve the desired result, which is, of course, the censorship of undesirable views.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
EU targets platforms that refuse to censor free speech \u2013 Telegram founder<\/p>\n
Last year, Elon Musk relayed a similarly shocking situation that saw him blackmailed by the unelected members of the European Commission.
\n\u201cThe European Commission offered X an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us,\u201d Musk wrote on X.
\n\u201cThe other platforms accepted that deal. X did not,\u201d he continued. \u201cWe look forward to a very public battle in court, so that the people of Europe can know the truth.\u201d
\nNow, it will be very interesting to see what kind of charges Musk \u2013 who was once under investigation by French prosecutors over so-called \u201calgorithmic bias\u201d \u2013 and X will face in the future: support for terrorists, child molesters, drug traffickers? Anything is possible, which is why so many social media platforms and their creators cave to such impossible pressure.
\nWhat does the future of social media look like in such a hostile and unpredictable environment? At the very least, holding innovators personally responsible for potential abuse of their tools would discourage the development of new technologies in the first place. At worst, it could spell jail time and other extreme penalties for those brave holdouts who fail to toe the state-sponsored line. In other words, we are facing very dark times for the world of social media, which threatens to be silenced into oblivion, that is, unless Mr. Musk gets his wish and the \u201cbureaucratic monster\u201d of the 27-member EU is rendered obsolete once and for all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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