Europe Fines X: The Moment the DSA Became Real
I’ve been learning the DSA as it unfolded. With Europe’s first fine against X, the law steps out of abstraction and into the real world.
Quick takeaways
- The EU has imposed its first fine under the Digital Services Act: €120 million against X.
- This marks a shift from expectation to enforcement.
- The DSA is not competition law, but ongoing governance of platform design and power.
- Earlier platform changes, such as Meta stepping back from political content, were anticipatory, not imposed.
- For Europeans, this now carries financial, political, and media consequences.
Watching a law take shape
When I first wrote about the Digital Services Act last summer, I did so consciously as a learner.
I am still one. No exams passed, no formal endpoint reached. What I had was curiosity, and a decision to follow this law closely as it moved from text to practice.
At the time, the DSA felt like a chessboard. The pieces were laid out, the rules visible, but the game had barely started. Platforms adjusted cautiously. Regulators prepared. The effects remained indirect.
A few months later, the first serious move has been made.
With the European Commission fining X €120 million under the Digital Services Act, the law has crossed a clear threshold. From design into action.
Rob Hoeijmakers
Why this fine is different
It is tempting to read this as just another EU tech fine. That would miss what is new here.
This is not competition law. It is not about market dominance or pricing power. The DSA governs something more structural: how very large platforms are designed, governed, and held accountable over time.
The violations identified in the X case are revealing. They concern misleading verification signals, limited advertising transparency, and restricted access for independent researchers. These are not marginal issues. They shape trust, visibility, and oversight at a systemic level.
This is governance, not punishment.
And crucially, it is ongoing. Under the DSA, a fine is not the end of a case, but the point at which expectations become enforceable.
Anticipation versus enforcement
Earlier, I used Meta’s decision to reduce the visibility of political content as an example of regulatory impact. The comparison still holds, but with an important clarification.
Meta was not fined. There was no enforcement action. What we saw was anticipatory behaviour: a platform adjusting strategy to reduce risk under a new regulatory environment.
The X case is different. Here, the regulator completed a procedure, established violations, and imposed consequences.
Together, these moments show how the DSA progresses. First, platforms adapt in anticipation. When they do not, enforcement follows. The law does not rush, but it does arrive.
Why this is no longer abstract
European law often feels distant. Procedural. Written in a language that rarely invites curiosity. I shared that instinct myself.
What changed for me while following the DSA is that it is no longer theoretical. With its first enforcement action, it has entered a tangible world.
Design choices now have financial consequences. Governance failures carry political weight. And the interfaces we use every day operate under a different set of expectations.
This is not legal detail for its own sake. It touches media ecosystems, product decisions, trust signals, and the tone of public discourse online. Once you see that, the law becomes legible.
A small personal stake
I should also be transparent about why this matters to me beyond professional interest.
I have been active on these platforms for years. Not at massive scale, but enough to notice shifts. A few thousand followers. Enough to sense when a space invites exchange, and when it rewards antagonism. I enjoyed Twitter for a long time. I even had the blue checkmark at one point, which felt oddly meaningful until it didn’t, and I let it go again.
Over time, my relationship with the platform changed. Not because of “Big Tech” as an abstract enemy, but because the atmosphere hardened. More violence. More ideological signalling by ownership. Less sense of an open public space.
I did not abandon commercial platforms. Newspapers and broadcasters are businesses too. Products can make money without being corrosive. I simply moved some of my attention elsewhere, including to Meta’s Threads, which has its own dynamics but currently feels governed differently.
That experience sharpened my attention to governance. Because platform power does not announce itself only through policy, but through product design.
And that is what the DSA ultimately addresses.
The broader picture
There is also a geopolitical dimension to this moment. A European regulator enforcing structural obligations on a US-owned platform is not an act of hostility, but of jurisdiction.
The message is simple: access to the European digital public space comes with conditions.
This is not about banning platforms, nor about moral posturing. It is about making power commensurate with responsibility, and doing so through law rather than improvisation.
You do not need to agree with every aspect of this approach to recognise its significance.
Coda: learning in public
I am still learning this law.
But there is a difference between not knowing and not seeing. Over the past months, I’ve gone from reading legal texts to recognising moves as they happen. From abstract concerns to concrete consequences.
That has given me a particular kind of confidence. Not in having the right opinion, but in understanding where things come from, and why certain moves are possible at all.
If EU law feels complex or distant, that is understandable. But moments like this matter precisely because they make the system visible.
The Digital Services Act is no longer potential. It is operative. And that makes it worth watching, move by move, because the game is now being played in the open.
Rob Hoeijmakers
Rob Hoeijmakers
