A top EU official denied taking a softer approach to Big Tech, citing a “very clear legal basis” for regulators and pointing to several ongoing investigations into similar social media platforms X and Target.
FT reported earlier this week which the EU reassessed investigations Apple, Google and Meta — a process that could ultimately lead to the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, reducing or changing the focus of its investigations.
However, speaking to CNBC on Thursday, Henna Virkkunen, the European Commission’s executive vice president for technological sovereignty, hit back.
“We have our Digital Services Act that came into force a little over a year ago, and there are several formal proceedings against, we can say, all the big platforms: Meta platform, Instagram, Facebook, also on X and TikTok,” he said. Virkkunen.
“We continue to work, so there are no new decisions. So we do investigations [to see] if they follow our rules,” she said.
The Law on Digital Services or DSA, which came into full force in 2024, gives EU institutions the power to regulate Big Tech in an attempt to prevent illegal and harmful online activity and combat disinformation.
However, despite these new powers, there are growing questions about how the EU will actually enforce the rules, especially after President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
“It remains to be seen what the EU will do, as some investigations have gone further than others, but it is also clear that US tech companies will try to use the Trump administration to resist EU rules,” Dexter Thillien, lead analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, he told CNBC.
It comes as technology industry try to to please Trump on the eve of his second presidential term. Tesla’s Elon Musk, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Zuckerberg will attend Trump’s inauguration next week, according to NBC News.
Meanwhile, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg last week urged the incoming US president to consider the EU’s approach to Big Tech, saying the way the bloc applies competition rules is “almost like a tariff”.
EU official Virkkunen is one of a new team of politicians who started their work as members of the EU executive in December. Until now, the bloc has been considered a leader in technology regulation and has opened the door to several investigations into the behavior of large technology companies.
When asked if she was considering a softer approach to the sector, Virkkunen said: “We [have a] very clear legal basis and regulatory rules in Europe, and of course we are now fully implementing those rules.”
Virkkunen did not say whether she feels pressure from Trump’s return to the White House. Instead, she said, “all companies, whether American, European or Chinese, must comply with EU regulations.”
Research X
In December 2023, Musk’s X was affected by the first EU investigation according to the Digital Services Act. The European Commission is evaluating whether X breached its transparency obligations and its duties to suppress illegal content.
At the time, the institution said it was specifically evaluating areas related to risk management, content moderation, dark samples, advertising transparency and data access for researchers.
As Musk continues to court the far right ahead of the German elections — including hosting a live discussion with AfD party leader Alice Weidel — questions are being raised as to whether the European Commission will evaluate this conversation as part of an investigation.
“This is not about Elon Musk. It’s about X,” Virkkunen said.
“X is [a] a very large online platform, they have to take their responsibilities and they have to assess and mitigate the risks, for example, of what they publish for electoral processes and for civil discourse. But [the European] The commission is already investigating X on this, and the scope of the investigation is already quite large,” she said, adding that we are “monitoring all the time” in case of new developments.
