BRUSSELS – Mr Elon Musk’s social media company X was fined €120 million (S$181 million) by European Union tech regulators on Dec 5 for breaching EU online content rules, the first sanction under landmark legislation which will likely draw the US government’s ire.

Rival TikTok staved off a penalty with concessions.

Europe’s crackdown on Big Tech to ensure smaller rivals can compete and consumers have more choice has been criticised by the administration of US President Donald Trump, which says it singles out American companies and censors Americans.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive, said its laws do not target any nationality and that it is merely

defending its digital and democratic standards

which usually serve as the benchmark for the rest of the world.

The EU sanction against X follows a two-year-long investigation under the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which requires online platforms to do more to tackle illegal and harmful content.

The EU’s investigation of ByteDance’s social media app TikTok led to charges in May that

the company had breached a DSA requirement

to publish an advertisement depository allowing researchers and users to detect scam advertisements.

The European Commission’s tech chief Henna Virkkunen said X’s modest fine was proportionate and calculated based on the nature of the infringements, their gravity in terms of affected EU users and their duration.

“We are not here to impose the highest fines. We are here to make sure that our digital legislation is enforced and if you comply with our rules...