EU Issues First DSA Penalty: €120 Million Fine Against Musk’s X

Brussels last flexed comparable regulatory muscle in 2004 when it fined Microsoft €497 m for bundling Windows Media Player—a move that foreshadowed the EU’s GDPR (2018) and now the DSA (2023) drive to police digital gatekeepers. The fine illustrates a century-long drift from laissez-faire communication networks (think the 1906 International Radiotelegraph Convention) toward thick, sovereignty-asserting rules over information flows. Whether one sees censorship or consumer protection, the decision hardens the EU’s claim to regulate foreign speech platforms extraterritorially, a trend that could, over a 100-year horizon, fragment the once-borderless internet into jurisdiction-bound zones much as 19th-century rail and telegraph networks were segmented by national standards.