The Trump Administration Is Trying to Get Musk and X Out of a $137 Million EU Fine

特朗普政府试图帮助马斯克和 X 规避欧盟 1.37 亿美元的罚款

The US government is trying to get Elon Musk and his social media platform X out of a $137 million fine by the European Union in an escalation of its criticism of the bloc’s tech rules. 美国政府正试图帮助埃隆·马斯克及其社交媒体平台 X 规避欧盟开出的 1.37 亿美元罚款，此举标志着美国对欧盟科技法规的批评进一步升级。

The US Department of Justice said it had filed an application with the help of the Department of State to support a legal challenge by Musk to annul the case in the EU’s General Court. The Luxembourg-based court will now decide whether the US has a right to intervene. 美国司法部表示，在国务院的协助下，已提交了一份申请，旨在支持马斯克在欧盟普通法院提起的撤销该案件的法律挑战。目前，这家位于卢森堡的法院将决定美国是否有权介入此案。

The US government is arguing that it should be involved in the case to protect American companies. The fine is precedent-setting as the bloc’s first sanction under the Digital Services Act, which requires online platforms to do more to tackle illegal and harmful content, especially the largest sites. Many of those, which include Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, Google’s YouTube, and Microsoft’s LinkedIn, are headquartered in the US and contribute significantly to the US economy, it pointed out. 美国政府辩称，其介入此案是为了保护美国公司。这笔罚款具有先例意义，因为它是欧盟根据《数字服务法》（DSA）开出的首张罚单。该法案要求在线平台（尤其是大型网站）采取更多措施打击非法和有害内容。美国政府指出，许多此类平台（包括 Meta 旗下的 Facebook 和 Instagram、谷歌的 YouTube 以及微软的 LinkedIn）总部均设在美国，并对美国经济做出了重大贡献。

“We will not tolerate the European Commission engaging in regulatory overreach to try and control American engines of innovation and economic growth,” said assistant attorney general Brett A. Shumate of the Justice Department’s Civil Division. 美国司法部民事司助理司法部长布雷特·A·舒马特（Brett A. Shumate）表示：“我们绝不容忍欧盟委员会进行监管越权，试图控制美国的创新和经济增长引擎。”

The case also has “implications” for US-EU relations, it warned. The act has become a major source of tension between officials, with US President Donald Trump calling the penalties “overseas extortion.” Last year, he threatened imposing tariffs on any country implementing digital regulation, which he said were “all designed to harm, or discriminate against, American technology.” Vice President JD Vance has criticized the DSA’s content moderation rules as “authoritarian censorship.” 美国政府警告称，此案还对美欧关系产生“影响”。《数字服务法》已成为双方官员之间紧张关系的主要来源，美国总统唐纳德·特朗普称这些处罚是“海外勒索”。去年，他曾威胁要对任何实施数字监管的国家征收关税，称这些监管“旨在损害或歧视美国技术”。副总统万斯（JD Vance）则批评 DSA 的内容审核规则是“威权审查”。

The European Commission slapped X with the €120 million fine in December following a two-year-long investigation which found X had breached transparency obligations. Claiming users with blue checkmarks are “verified accounts” when they simply have to pay for the status is deceptive, the Commission ruled. X’s inaccessible and incomplete advertising repository and failure to provide access to public data for researchers is also hindering research into the platform’s risks, it said. In July, the Commission accepted X’s plan to fix the data access issues, which X now has six months to implement. 去年 12 月，欧盟委员会在经过两年的调查后，认定 X 违反了透明度义务，对其处以 1.2 亿欧元的罚款。欧盟委员会裁定，X 将仅需付费即可获得的“蓝勾”标记称为“认证账户”具有欺骗性。此外，X 的广告存储库无法访问且信息不全，且未能为研究人员提供公共数据访问权限，这也阻碍了对该平台风险的研究。今年 7 月，欧盟委员会接受了 X 提出的解决数据访问问题的方案，X 目前有六个月的时间来落实该方案。

Both Musk and X launched appeals against the ruling on behalf of both parties in February. The EU’s investigation was “incomplete and superficial” and the interpretation of the DSA obligations “tortured,” they said. They also complained they had not been given “rights of defence … suggesting prosecutorial bias.” 今年 2 月，马斯克和 X 代表双方对该裁决提起了上诉。他们表示，欧盟的调查“不完整且流于表面”，对 DSA 义务的解读“牵强附会”。他们还抱怨称，自己没有获得“辩护权……这表明检方存在偏见”。

Musk has also complained about the financial and administrative burden of heightened transparency requirements as governments globally try to get a better understanding of—and limit—social media platforms’ risks of harm. In July, he argued Australia’s “invasive” information-gathering powers within the country’s under-16 social media ban interfered with international law. At the time, professor of internet law at Queen Mary University of London, Julia Hörnle, told WIRED that Australian regulators were within their rights to order disclosures related to a company’s operations in that particular country. 马斯克还抱怨称，随着全球各国政府试图更好地了解并限制社交媒体平台的危害风险，日益严格的透明度要求带来了沉重的财务和行政负担。今年 7 月，他辩称澳大利亚在 16 岁以下青少年社交媒体禁令中行使的“侵入式”信息收集权干涉了国际法。当时，伦敦玛丽女王大学互联网法教授朱莉娅·霍恩勒（Julia Hörnle）告诉《连线》（WIRED）杂志，澳大利亚监管机构有权要求企业披露与其在该国运营相关的信息。