EU warns X over illegal content risks — Musk replies with Tropic Thunder insult meme | TechCrunch (2024)

How is the European Union’s bid to get Elon Musk to follow its rules going? Judging by the memes, not well.

You may recall the X owner previously told his own advertisers to “go f— yourself,” so it’s perhaps little wonder he’s flirting with flipping the bird at Thierry Breton, the commissioner in charge of overseeing compliance with the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA). Musk on Monday referenced a line from the film Tropic Thunder in which Tom Cruise, barely recognizable as studio exec Les Grossman, says (and then shouts): “Take a big step back AND LITERALLY F— YOUR OWN FACE!”

The same film contains another (heavily memed) line that Musk may be intending to remind his viewers of by injecting the comedy flick’s aura into this interaction with EU regulators: “Never go full re**rd.” (Note Musk’s emphatic use of the negative when he claims in the same post on X he would “NEVER do something so rude & irresponsible.” Ahem.)

There’s only negative revenue at stake here for X if it alienates the EU since the Commission has the power to issue penalties of up to 6% of global annual turnover for noncompliance with the DSA. The bloc already suspects X of breaking its online governance rulebook: In July, it reported preliminary findings for a subset of issues it’s been investigating X for, saying it found the platform’s blue check system to be an illegal dark pattern and that X also has major transparency problems.

A second DSA investigation on X has been ongoing since December concerning how it responds to illegal content and risks related to the spread of disinformation, including related to the Israel-Hamas war.

More recently, following civic unrest in the U.K., the Commission has warned that the disinformation being spread on X related to the violent disturbances in parts of the U.K. may be factored into its DSA enforcement. So this ongoing wide-ranging investigation clearly amps up the regulatory risk for X in the EU.

Still, maybe Musk figures he’s done such strong work to crater X’s revenue (by alienating advertisers, for example) that the prospect of losing a chunk of what’s left to EU fines isn’t very scary anymore. That’s billionaire logic, baby! (Er, never go full billionaire?)

Breton’s open letter to Musk, posted to X late Monday local time ahead of a livestreamed interview on X between Musk and former U.S. president Donald Trump, is probably not going to help the Commission’s propaganda war against the erratic billionaire, though.

First up, the letter reads like a first draft in sore need of a heavy edit. There are so many words it’s not immediately clear what the EU’s point is. That, ironically, risks the letter being misinterpreted as an attempt to censor speech on X.

Second, there seems to be a rather bizarre conflation of events by the Commission: Breton starts the letter saying he’s writing to Musk in relation both to “recent events in the U.K.” and to the upcoming Trump interview. If there’s an attempt to imply a link between the two events, it’s not clear what the EU might think that is.

Inciting violence and hate speech is likely to be illegal content in all the EU markets where the DSA applies, whereas an interview with Trump might qualify as a very tedious listen, but the fact of it happening isn’t illegal in and of itself.

In essence, the EU missive is a reminder to Musk of his legal obligations under the DSA to mitigate risks on his platform related to the spread of illegal content, such as posts intending to incite hatred, violence and civic unrest; and in relation to the risks posed by disinformation that might cause societal harms, such as by fueling civic unrest or undermining national security.

Given the letter’s timing, perhaps the EU was worried Trump was going to talk about the U.K. riots and dogwhistle for “civil war,” as Musk did last week.

But no such thing happened, per Politico‘s account of the interview. Musk tried to get Trump to attack the EU over censorship but the effort fell flat, as Trump preferred to stick to his knitting and bash the EU over trade tariffs.

Notably, the letter warns Musk that his own account on X is under DSA regulation, making explicit reference to his personal reach on X “as a user with over 190 million followers.”

This is a clearer shot at Musk, letting him know the EU has seen how he’s been using his account to amplify divisive narratives around the U.K.’s civic unrest, and warning him to stop the regional rabble-rousing or face DSA consequences.

“[W]e are monitoring the potential risks in the EU associated with the dissemination of content that may incite violence, hate and racism in conjunction with major political — or societal — events around the world, including debates and interviews in the context of elections,” Breton wrote.

The EU commissioner further stipulated that “any negative effect of illegal content on X in the EU, which could be attributed to the ineffectiveness of the way in which X applies the relevant provisions of the DSA, may be relevant in the context of the ongoing proceedings and of the overall assessment of X’s compliance with EU law.”

Aside from firing back at Breton with insulting memes, Musk’s immediate response has been to accuse the EU of overreach by suggesting, via his interview with Trump, that it’s trying to censor the views of people outside the EU.

However, content on X is obviously visible to EU users, and therefore subject to the DSA — regardless of any political point scoring Musk may be engaged in here.

The EU’s letter to Musk contains a further sting in the form of a pointed reminder it could opt to use “interim measures” to crack down on noncompliance. Fines aren’t the only game in town — the DSA empowers the Commission to order changes on platforms aimed at countering urgent threats, such as demanding infringing content is taken down or even temporarily blocking access to an entire service.

So, basically, an EU-wide shutdown of X is what Musk is being reminded may yet come to pass if he doesn’t get with the bloc’s program and comply with the DSA.

For a self-declared free speech absolutist like Musk — whose stated ambition with X is to own the global town square — the threat of being shut out of a market of more than 450 million people might give him more pause than the prospect of being fined a few tens of millions of dollars. That, too, is billionaire logic.