LONDON (THE NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE)

The European Union fined X, the social platform owned by Elon Musk, $140 million Friday for violating one of the bloc’s major laws targeting the technology industry.

The case has been seen as a test of European officials’ willingness to aggressively regulate tech companies. X is the first company to be fined under the EU’s Digital Services Act, a law intended to force large internet companies to protect their platforms against manipulation and illicit content.

The US has criticised the policy as an attack on free speech and US tech firms.

Regulators in Brussels said the penalty against X was not about free speech but about the company’s lack of controls to prevent the platform from being abused. That included X’s "deceptive design” that allowed users to mislead others about their identities, opaque advertising practices, and refusal to provide independent researchers with access to public data.

"Deceiving users with blue check marks, obscuring information on ads, and shutting out researchers have no place online in the EU,” Henna Virkkunen, the executive vice president for tech sovereignty, security, and democracy for the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said in a statement. "We are holding X responsible for undermining users’ rights and evading accountability.”

X did not respond to requests for comment. Musk can appeal the ruling, which could set up a prolonged legal battle.

The X penalty had been expected to be announced earlier this year but was delayed during trade negotiations between the EU and United States. The fine may not be the last X faces in the EU. A second, more far-reaching investigation is underway into the company’s hands-off approach to policing content.