Brussels, Belgium   –   The European Union is back in the crosshairs of the Trump administration over its tech rules, which Washington denounced as an attempt to “coerce” American social media platforms into censoring viewpoints they oppose. The US State Department said Tuesday it would deny visas to a former EU commissioner and four others, saying they “have advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states — in each case targeting American speakers and American companies”.  Trump has vowed to punish countries that seek to curb US big tech firms. Brussels has adopted a powerful legal arsenal aimed at reining in tech giants — namely through its Digital Markets Act (DMA) which covers competition and the Digital Services Act (DSA) on content moderation. The EU has already slapped heavy fines on US behemoths including Apple, Meta and X under the new rules. Here is a look at the EU rules drawing Trump’s ire: Rolled out in stages since 2023, the mammoth Digital Services Act forces online firms to aggressively police content in the 27 countries of the European Union — or face major fines. Aimed at protecting consumers from disinformation and hate speech as well as counterfeit or dangerous goods, it obliges platforms to swiftly remove illegal content or make it inaccessible. The law instructs platforms to suspend users who frequently share illegal content such as hate speech — a provision framed as “censorship” by detractors across the Atlantic. Tougher rules apply to a designated list of “very large” platforms that include US giants Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Instagram, Microsoft, Snapchat and X. These giants must assess dangers linked to their services regarding illegal content and privacy, set up internal risk mitigation systems, and give regulators access to their data to verify compliance. Violators can face fines of up to six percent of global turnover, and the EU has the power to ban offending platforms from Europe for repeated non-compliance.

Elon Musk’s X was hit with the first fine under the DSA on December 5, a 120-million-euro ($140 million) penalty for a lack of transparency over what the EU calls the deceptive design of its “blue checkmark” for supposedly verified accounts, and its failure to provide access to public data for researchers.