Because I have an impression that too many people simply don’t understand what exactly #EuropeanUnion fined #Twitter and #Meta for and uncritically internalised the US narrative of “censorship”, I’ve asked… Grok. Here’s the bottom line:
No, the fines had nothing to do with #censorship - they were for a massive flood of scam and fake accounts, that is bot farms. Plus some B2B monopolistic abuse (DMA).
Here’s more details from Grok:
Short summary of 2025 EU fines on Big TechX (Twitter) – €120 million (Dec 2025)
- For misleading paid blue checks, blocking researcher data access, and a broken ad transparency tool (DSA violations).
- Meta – €200 million (Apr 2025) + ongoing cases
Main fine: “pay or consent” model violates DMA (forces users to pay or allow full tracking). Additional DSA probes for poor content moderation, researcher access, and blocking rival AI chatbots in WhatsApp.
- Apple – €500 million (Apr 2025) Blocking developers from telling users about cheaper payment options outside the App Store (DMA).
Others
- TikTok, Temu, AliExpress under DSA investigation (ads transparency, illegal products, child protection). Google/Alphabet also probed under DMA/DSA.
All cases stem from the Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA).