US backs Elon Musk's bid to overturn €120m EU fine against X

In a press briefing on Friday, European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said it was "ready to defend" its position in court.He added that the commission had an "solid case" at its disposal, due to the alleged breach of its Digital Services Act.In addition to its use of blue ticks, EU regulators had accused X of failing to provide transparency around its adverts and denying researchers access to public data.Henna Virkkunen, the regulator's executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, said at the time of the fine's issue it was "holding X responsible for undermining users' rights and evading accountability"."Deceiving users with blue checkmarks, obscuring information on ads and shutting out researchers have no place online in the EU," she said.US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had criticised the EU regulator, accusing it of attacking and censoring US firms."The European Commission's fine isn't just an attack on X, it's an attack on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments," Rubio wrote in a post on X."The days of censoring Americans online are over."