French FM backs EU €120 million fine on X, calls it "only the beginning"
The €120 million fine imposed on social media platform X is only the beginning, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said in a post on the platform.
“No matter how hard the reactionary international forces try, we will not be intimidated. Transparency is a mandatory requirement for major platforms. The rules are the same for everyone. TikTok complied, X refused," he wrote on X, per Caliber.Az.
"The European Commission took action, and rightly so. And this is only the beginning,” the diplomat wrote.
On December 5, 2025, the European Commission (EC) imposed a €120 million fine on X (formerly Twitter), marking the first enforcement action under the bloc’s new digital regulatory framework, the Digital Services Act (DSA).
According to the European Commission, X violated three core transparency obligations under the Digital Services Act. First, the platform implemented a deceptive “blue checkmark” system: since 2022, the verification badge can be purchased by any user without meaningful identity verification, making it unreliable for signalling verified public figures or organisations and complicating users’ ability to assess authenticity.
Second, X failed to maintain an accessible and adequate public ads repository, lacking crucial details such as who paid for adverts and their intended audience, which hinders regulators, civil society, and researchers from detecting scams, disinformation, or coordinated influence operations.
Third, the platform blocked or severely restricted independent access to public content metadata, such as views and likes, limiting external scrutiny of misinformation, harmful content, or systemic risks on X.
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