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> "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.

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eurofounder and compliantvc having blue checks was probably the final straw.
> "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?

Why can a company be fined for not allowing "researchers" access to data? That seems bizarre to me.
why? what seems bizarre to me is that platforms of such whitespread use and public interest can be bought and ruined by some random person
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?
They call it 'verified', and, er, do not seem to do much in the way of verification. I mean, it's hard not to see it as misleading at the very least.
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Don't do business in Europe if you don't like it. It's not hard.

And if you must use these kind of loaded terms, insisting you MUST be allowed to do business on YOUR TERMS and your terms alone is pretty much how colonisation started.

I mean, is there really any reason to continue offering the service in Europe? I highly doubt the revenue is really worth the trouble.
At this point, X is a propaganda tool for the radical right. I won't miss X in Europe if you decide to remove access to EU. Please, do it.

Mind you, 120M USD is peanuts for Musk. If it were me, I'd just fine X 1.000.000.000.000.000.000.000 USD just because I want to retaliate against Trump's silliness. If you wanna play hardball, expect it back. But, but... freedom of bullshit. You can keep that, we can perfectly use freedom of speech on solid platforms instead.

It’s an effective tool to influence less informed people. How else would they make Farage/Brexit/FN/VB/Orban/… things relevant in public discourse?
I left the EU years ago. Today, I feel way happier and freer. Once you're out, you realize how strongly they were influencing your ability to be free via rules, taxes, news, low salaries, and business start-up costs. Try it yourself if you get the chance.
The US could just adopt a law which automatically seizes assets from the EU to cover any such fines. Demonstrate where true power lies.

Define this type of action as "bureaucratic piracy". Any rule which preferentially targets US interests over domestic either in its creation or its enforcement. Apply some of that "disparate outcomes" logic.