The U.S. Trade Representative warned that it may impose countermeasures on the European Union after it fined social media platform X for engaging in alleged “deceptive” practices.
“The European Union and certain EU Member States have persisted in a continuing course of discriminatory and harassing lawsuits, taxes, fines, and directives against U.S. service providers. U.S. services companies provide substantial free services to EU citizens and reliable enterprise services to EU companies, and they support millions of jobs and more than $100 billion in direct investment in Europe,” the Trade Representative wrote on X. “The United States has raised concerns with the EU for years on these matters without meaningful engagement or basic acknowledgement of U.S. concerns.”
Should the EU and its member states continue to “restrict, limit, and deter the competitiveness of U.S. service providers through discriminatory means, the United States will have no choice but to begin using every tool at its disposal to counter these unreasonable measures,” it wrote, emphasizing, “Should responsive measures be necessary, U.S. law permits the assessment of fees or restrictions on foreign services, among other actions. The United States will take a similar approach to other countries that pursue an EU-style strategy in this area.”
The European Commission claimed earlier this month that X’s use of a “blue checkmark” for some accounts “deceives users.”
“On X, anyone can pay to obtain the ‘verified’ status without the company meaningfully verifying who is behind the account, making it difficult for users to judge the authenticity of accounts and content they engage with,” the European Commission argued. “This deception exposes users to scams, including impersonation frauds, as well as other forms of manipulation by malicious actors. While the DSA does not mandate user verification, it clearly prohibits online platforms from falsely claiming that users have been verified, when no such verification took place.”
