BRUSSELS — Elon Musk has denied that X’s artificial intelligence tool Grok generates illegal content in the wake of AI-generated undressed and sexualized images on the platform. In a fresh post Wednesday, X’s powerful owner sought to argue that users — not the AI tool — are responsible and that the platform is fully compliant with all laws. “I[‘m] not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok,” he said. “Literally zero.” “When asked to generate images, [Grok] will refuse to produce anything illegal, as the operating principle for Grok is to obey the laws of any given country or state,” he added. “There may be times when adversarial hacking of Grok prompts does something unexpected. If that happens, we fix the bug immediately.” Musk’s remarks follow heightened scrutiny by both the EU and the U.K., with Brussels describing the appearance of nonconsensual, sexually explicit deepfakes on X as “illegal,” “appalling” and “disgusting.” The U.K.’s communications watchdog, Ofcom, said Monday that it had launched an investigation into X. On Wednesday, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the platform is “acting to ensure full compliance” with the relevant law but said the government won’t “back down.” The EU’s tech chief Henna Virkkunen warned Monday that X should quickly “fix” its AI tool, or the platform would face consequences under the bloc’s platform law, the Digital Services Act. The Commission last week ordered X to retain all of Grok’s data and documents until the end of the year. Just 11 days ago, Musk said that “anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content” in response to a post about the inappropriate images. The company’s safety team posted a similar line, warning that it takes action against illegal activity, including child sexual abuse material.

Ultra-fast-fashion giant Shein will attend a hearing at the European Parliament to discuss the company’s business practices. Pressure has been mounting on Shein to meet with policymakers, who are concerned about the influx of cheap parcels it generates as well as suspected breaches of EU law and the environmental impact it has, especially as the company was caught selling child-like sex dolls in France. The Parliament’s internal market committee had been trying for weeks to bring the platform in for a hearing, but to no avail. Now a date has finally been set for Jan. 27, according to officials. The head of Shein’s Business Integrity Group for Greater Europe, Yinan Zhu, will appear before the committee. “Shein finally answers to EU lawmakers and will appear before the IMCO Committee after I had several email exchanges with them,” said the committee’s chair, German Green MEP Anna Cavazzini. In a letter seen by POLITICO, Zhu confirmed his attendance and asked for a separate meeting with the committee chair. Zhu said he wants to discuss in detail the measures that the company is putting in place to address lawmakers’ concerns. Cavazzini’s goal is to scrutinize the platform. “MEPs finally get to their right to closely scrutinise both the Commission’s enforcement efforts and the conduct of major online marketplaces in the light of Shein’s recent scandals,” she said. Shein’s Martin Reidy said in a statement: “We intend to attend the IMCO committee meeting on 27 January and look forward to a constructive exchange with members on the industry-wide challenge of ensuring customer safety and protection online.”

A clash between Poland’s right-wing president and its centrist ruling coalition over the European Union’s flagship social media law is putting the country further at risk of multimillion euro fines from Brussels. President Karol Nawrocki is holding up a bill that would implement the EU’s Digital Services Act, a tech law that allows regulators to police how social media firms moderate content. Nawrocki, an ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, said in a statement that the law would “give control of content on the internet to officials subordinate to the government, not to independent courts.” The government coalition led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Nawrocki’s rival, warned this further exposed them to the risk of EU fines as high as €9.5 million. Deputy Digital Minister Dariusz Standerski said in a TV interview that, “since the president decided to veto this law, I’m assuming he is also willing to have these costs [of a potential fine] charged to the budget of the President’s Office.” Nawrocki’s refusal to sign the bill brings back bad memories of Warsaw’s years-long clash with Brussels over the rule of law, a conflict that began when Nawrocki’s Law and Justice party rose to power in 2015 and started reforming the country’s courts and regulators. The EU imposed €320 million in penalties on Poland from 2021-2023. Warsaw was already in a fight with the Commission over its slow implementation of the tech rulebook since 2024, when the EU executive put Poland on notice for delaying the law’s implementation and for not designating a responsible authority. In May last year Brussels took Warsaw to court over the issue. If the EU imposes new fines over the rollout of digital rules, it would “reignite debates reminiscent of the rule-of-law mechanism and frozen funds disputes,” said Jakub Szymik, founder of Warsaw-based non-profit watchdog group CEE Digital Democracy Watch. Failure to implement the tech law could in the long run even lead to fines and penalties accruing over time, as happened when Warsaw refused to reform its courts during the earlier rule of law crisis. The European Commission said in a statement that it “will not comment on national legislative procedures.” It added that “implementing the [Digital Services Act] into national law is essential to allow users in Poland to benefit from the same DSA rights.” “This is why we have an ongoing infringement procedure against Poland” for its “failure to designate and empower” a responsible authority, the statement said. Under the tech platforms law, countries were supposed to designate a national authority to oversee the rules by February 2024. Poland is the only EU country that hasn’t moved to at least formally agree on which regulator that should be. The European Commission is the chief regulator for a group of very large online platforms, including Elon Musk’s X, Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, Google’s YouTube, Chinese-owned TikTok and Shein and others. But national governments have the power to enforce the law on smaller platforms and certify third parties for dispute resolution, among other things. National laws allow users to exercise their rights to appeal to online platforms and challenge decisions. When blocking the bill last Friday, Nawrocki said a new version could be ready within two months. But that was “very unlikely … given that work on the current version has been ongoing for nearly two years and no concrete alternative has been presented” by the president, said Szymik, the NGO official. The Digital Services Act has become a flashpoint in the political fight between Brussels and Washington over how to police online platforms. The EU imposed its first-ever fine under the law on X in December, prompting the U.S. administration to sanction former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton and four other Europeans. Nawrocki last week likened the law to “the construction of the Ministry of Truth from George Orwell’s novel 1984,” a criticism that echoed claims by Trump and his top MAGA officials that the law censored conservatives and right-wingers. Bartosz Brzeziński contributed reporting.

BRUSSELS — The European Commission’s top tech official has warned Elon Musk’s X to quickly “fix” its AI tool Grok — or face consequences under the controversial Digital Services Act. The fact that Grok allows users to generate pictures that depict women and minors undressed and sexualized is “horrendous”, said Henna Virkkunen, the Commission’s tech chief. She urged the company to take immediate action. “X now has to fix its AI tool in the EU, and they have to do it quickly,” she said in a post on the platform. If that doesn’t happen, the European Commission is ready to strike under the the Digital Services Act, its law governing digital platforms. “We will not hesitate to put the DSA to its full use to protect EU citizens.” Under the DSA, platforms like X must address systemic risks, including those related to the spread of illegal content, or face fines of up to 6 per cent of their global annual turnover. Last month the European Commission imposed a €120 million fine on X for minor transparency infringements, drawing howls of outrage from the Trump administration. The Commission ordered X last week to retain all documents and data related to Grok until the end of this year.

WARSAW — Poland’s nationalist President Karol Nawrocki on Friday sided with his ally U.S. President Donald Trump to veto legislation on enforcing the EU’s social media law, which is hated by the American administration. Trump and his top MAGA officials condemn the EU’s Digital Services Act — which seeks to force big platforms like Elon Musk’s X, Facebook, Instagram to moderate content — as a form of “Orwellian” censorship against conservative and right-wingers. The presidential veto stops national regulators in Warsaw from implementing the DSA and sets Nawrocki up for a a clash with centrist pro-EU Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Tusk’s parliamentary majority passed the legislation introducing the DSA in Poland. Nawrocki argued that while the bill’s stated aim of protecting citizens — particularly minors — was legitimate, the Polish bill would grant excessive power to government officials over online content, resulting in “administrative censorship.”  “I want this to be stated clearly: a situation in which what is allowed on the internet is decided by an official subordinate to the government resembles the construction of the Ministry of Truth from George Orwell’s novel 1984,” Nawrocki said in a statement — echoing the U.S.’s stance on the law. Nawrocki also warned that allowing authorities to decide what constitutes truth or disinformation would erode freedom of expression “step by step.” He called for a revised draft that would protect children while ensuring that disputes over online speech are settled by independent courts. Deputy Prime Minister and Digital Affairs Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski dismissed Nawrocki’s position, accusing the president of undermining online safety and siding with digital platforms.  “The president has vetoed online safety,” Gawkowski told a press briefing Friday afternoon, arguing the law would have protected children from predators, families from disinformation and users from opaque algorithms.  The minister also rejected Nawrocki’s Orwellian comparisons, saying the bill explicitly relied on ordinary courts rather than officials to rule on online content. Gawkowski said Poland is now among the few EU countries without national legislation enabling effective enforcement of the DSA and pledged that the government would continue to pursue new rules. The clash comes as enforcement of the social media law has become a flashpoint in EU-U.S. relations.  Brussels has already fined Elon Musk’s X €120 million for breaching the law, prompting a furious response from Washington, including travel bans imposed by the Trump administration on former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton, an architect of the tech law, and four disinformation experts. The DSA allows fines of up to 6 percent of a company’s global revenue and, as a measure of last resort, temporary bans on platforms. Earlier this week, the European Commission expanded its investigation into X’s AI service Grok after it started posting a wave of non-consensual sexualized pictures of people in response to X users’ requests. The European Commission’s digital spokesperson Thomas Regnier said the EU executive would not comment on national legislative procedures. “Implementing the DSA into national law is essential to allow users in Poland to benefit from the same DSA rights, such as challenging platforms if their content is deleted or their account suspended,” he said. “This is why we have an ongoing infringement procedure against Poland. We have referred Poland to the Court of Justice of the EU for failure to designate and empower the Digital Services Coordinator,” in May 2025, Regnier added. Gawkowski said that the government would make a quick decision on what to do next with the vetoed bill but declined to offer specifics on what a new bill would look like were it to be submitted to parliament again. Tusk four-party coalition does not have enough votes in parliament to override Nawrocki’s vetoes. That has created a political deadlock over key legislation efforts by the government, which stands for reelection next year. Nawrocki, meanwhile, is aiming to help the Law and Justice (PiS) political party he’s aligned with to retake power after losing to Tusk in 2023. Mathieu Pollet contributed reporting.

PARIS — Former European commissioner Thierry Breton urged the European Union to respond with “the utmost severity” to the Trump administration’s decision to sanction him and four other European nationals for their work on online content moderation. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio last week announced Breton would be “generally barred from entering the United States,” along with British citizens Imran Ahmed and Clare Melford and Germany’s Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon, all of whom were members of organizations seeking to fight hate speech online. The U.S. State Department targeted Breton as the “mastermind of the Digital Services Act,” the EU’s rulebook for online platforms which was used to impose a €120 million fine on Elon Musk’s X and has led to a high-level dispute between Brussels and Washington. “If we accept that, as a European Commissioner, you can be ostracized, blamed, and punished for carrying out the mandate entrusted to you, then we are heading down an extraordinarily dangerous path,” Breton said Tuesday on RTL. “If we allow this situation to continue, it would mean that those who succeed me and have to exercise their European mandate would be intimidated and prevented from doing so.” “The European Commission cannot show any sign of weakness… European institutions must respond with the utmost severity,” he added. Breton said he had spoken at length with French President Emmanuel Macron after being sanctioned. The former tech industry executive, who resigned from his role as commissioner for internal market last year over claims Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen was trying to push him out, has received widespread support in Europe since the U.S. decision against him. In a statement, the Commission said it had “requested clarifications from the U.S. authorities” and would “if needed … respond swiftly and decisively.”

BRUSSELS — The fight between Brussels and Washington over tech rules is officially high politics — and shows no sign of stopping in 2026.  Last week the United States sanctioned a former top European Commission official, alleging he was a “mastermind” of the bloc’s content moderation law. The travel ban was a sign the Trump administration is ramping up its attacks on what it calls Europe’s censorship regime.  The pressure puts Brussels between a rock and a hard place.  EU leaders like France’s Emmanuel Macron and European Parliament lawmakers dismissed the U.S. move as intimidation and even suggested considering counteraction, ramping up calls for Brussels to hold its ground and reduce the EU’s reliance on U.S. technology.  It suggests that U.S. pressure on the EU’s tech rules is now a full-blown transatlantic dispute of its own, rather than just a sideshow to trade talks, and requires an appropriate response. “The real response must be political,” said Italian Social Democrat lawmaker Brando Benifei, the European Parliament’s lead on relations with the U.S., in response to the American sanctions.  “Our sleepwalking leaders must wake up, because there’s no time left.” While the Commission condemned the U.S. move, its President Ursula von der Leyen offered a muted response, highlighting only the importance of freedom of speech in a post on X. ONLY THE START The U.S. move to impose a travel ban on Frenchman Thierry Breton, who served as the EU’s internal market chief from 2019 to 2024 and led the drafting of the Digital Services Act, marked an acceleration in the U.S. campaign against the EU’s tech rules.  Breton has borne the brunt of criticism over the EU’s tech rules, particularly following his public spat with U.S. President Donald Trump’s one-time ally, X owner Elon Musk. The tech billionaire appears to be back in the president’s good books after a bitter falling-out over the summer. A letter Breton sent in August 2024 to warn Musk ahead of an upcoming livestream featuring then-presidential candidate Trump was repeatedly shared by Trump loyalists after Breton was sanctioned.  Another four individuals were sanctioned, including two from German NGO HateAid, which Berlin’s regulators have said is a “trusted” organization to flag illegal content like hate speech.   The U.S. had previously mainly threatened the EU over its tech rules, or invoked them when the EU demanded concessions from Washington such as lower steel and aluminum tariffs in early December. But after the Commission crossed the Rubicon in early December and imposed its first-ever Digital Services Act fine on Musk’s X, Washington responded with the travel bans.  The EU executive has repeatedly said its enforcement of the DSA is not political, yet Washington insists it is nothing but.  Threats of travel restrictions from the U.S. have been trickling in since the summer, but the Commission has declined to say how it plans to protect its officials.  Both sides still have room — and face internal calls to escalate — in what is now a full-blown transatlantic dispute over the limits of free speech.  Just earlier this month, when the U.S. announced its intention to require social media disclosures from people hoping to enter the country on temporary visas, Commission chief spokesperson Paula Pinho insisted these were only plans and declined to comment on how it would protect its staff working on the DSA.  Pressured by journalists about the impact on staff working on digital rules, she said tech spokesperson Thomas Regnier had no plans to visit the U.S.  Still, the sanctions announced by the State Department may be only a warning shot.  The measures announced last week targeted a former Commission official, not someone currently in office. The U.S. still has many other tools in its arsenal, which U.S. politicians say it should use.  Missouri Republican Senator Eric Schmitt called for the use of Magnitsky sanctions, which are financial measures that can cause significant operational headaches including asset freezes and barring U.S. entities from trading with sanctioned entities.  While they are normally reserved for serious human rights violations like war crimes or the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the Trump administration has already used them to go after another person deemed to be a modern agent of censorship.  In July, the Treasury and State departments announced Magnitsky sanctions against Brazilian Judge Alexandre de Moraes, including for suppressing “speech that is protected under the U.S. Constitution.”  De Moraes has drawn the same criticism as EU officials from the Trump administration and its allies, including Musk.  COUNTERACTION The Commission also faces heat from the other side, with EU country leaders and European Parliament lawmakers demanding a more political response to the situation.  The EU’s tech rules have been a regular topic of debate at the Parliament’s plenary sessions, and several lawmakers have indicated the U.S. travel restrictions could be on the agenda for the January session.  German Greens lawmaker Sergey Lagodinsky said the EU should not rule out considering some sort of counteraction.  “Europe must respond. It must raise pressure in the trade talks and consider measures against senior tech executives who actively support the U.S. administration agenda,” he said in a statement shared with POLITICO.  Breton himself accused the EU institutions of being “very weak” in an interview with TF1. Just before the break, in a rare joint address, MEPs from four political groups called for stronger action against U.S. Big Tech companies.  “The small fine against X is a good beginning, but it comes definitely too late, and it’s absolutely not enough,” said German Greens MEP Alexandra Geese. The socialists have tried to kick off a special inquiry committee to figure out if the Commission is strong enough in enforcing the DSA, although support from other groups is lacking.  The Commission has yet to announce its decisions on the meatier part of its DSA probe into X and other platforms.  Others see the U.S. sanctions as another warning to reduce reliance on U.S. technology and build up the EU’s own technological capacity.  “Lovely, but not enough,” Aurore Lalucq, a French MEP and chair of the economic affairs committee, quipped in response to the Commission’s condemnation of the U.S. sanctions.  “We need to build our independence now. It starts with our payment systems, a sovereign cloud, and an industrial policy for digital infrastructure and social networks.”

The Trump administration says it is barring former European Commissioner Thierry Breton and four other European nationals involved in curbing hate speech from U.S. soil as part of a sanctions package targeting what it describes as digital censorship. The sanctions, announced Tuesday, also revoke the U.S. visas of British citizens Imran Ahmed and Clare Melford, who respectively head the Centre for Countering Digital Hate and the Global Disinformation Index. Ahmed, who currently lives in Washington, faces immediate deportation, the Telegraph reported. Germany’s Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon, leaders of Hate Aid, a non-profit that tracks digital disinformation spread by far-right groups, are also subject to the visa bans. The move is the latest in a series of warning shots volleyed by the U.S. at allies over what it views as unfair efforts to regulate American social media and tech giants, including Elon Musk-owned X, which was slapped with a €120 million fine earlier this month for violating the bloc’s content moderation law. In a statement, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the targets of the newly announced sanctions as “radical activists” who had worked to “coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints.” Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers named the targets of the package in a thread posted on X in which she underscored the Trump Administration’s rejection of European efforts to crack down on hate speech. Rogers justified Breton’s visa ban by naming the French official, who served within European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s first administration, as the “mastermind” behind the bloc’s landmark Digital Services Act (DSA). That legislation has allowed the EU to level multimillion-euro fines on American tech giants like Apple and Meta for breaking digital antitrust rules, and to go after X for failing to curb disinformation. She also identified Britain’s Ahmed as a “key collaborator with the Biden Administration’s effort to weaponize the government against U.S. citizens,” and said Melford‘s Global Disinformation Index had used taxpayer money to “exhort censorship and blacklisting of American speech and press.” Rogers, who recently met with representatives of the German right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Washington, further named von Hodenberg and Ballon, both of Berlin-based non-profit Hate Aid, for allegedly censoring conservative speech. Breton responded to the sanctions with a post in which he asked if former U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist “witch hunt” was being revived, and pointed out that the DSA had been approved by the majority of lawmakers in the European Parliament and unanimously backed by the bloc’s 27 member countries. “Censorship isn’t where you think it is,” he wrote, questioning U.S. efforts to undermine the EU’s quest to reduce the spread of disinformation. European Commission Vice President for Industrial Strategy Stéphane Séjourné on Wednesday backed Breton in a post in which he said “no sanction will silence the sovereignty of the European peoples.” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot condemned the visa restrictions and defended the DSA, which he said ensures “what is illegal offline is also illegal online.” The Trump administration is openly opposed to European attempts to regulate online platforms. Vice President JD Vance routinely rails against alleged attempts to use digital rules to censor free speech, and earlier this month said the EU should not be “attacking American companies over garbage.” Tech policy professionals say actions like Tuesday’s sanctions package, and the previous issuance of veiled threats at European companies accused of unfairly penalizing U.S. tech giants, may amount to a negotiating tactic on the part of a White House that wants to underscore its discontent with Europe’s regulations — without risking new trade wars that could threaten the U.S. economy.

BRUSSELS — The European Commission is cracking down on two Chinese companies, airport scanner maker Nuctech and e-commerce giant Temu, that are suspected of unfairly penetrating the EU market with the help of state subsidies. The EU executive opened an in-depth probe into Nuctech under its Foreign Subsidies Regulation on Thursday, a year and a half after initial inspections at the company’s premises in Poland and the Netherlands. “The Commission has preliminary concerns that Nuctech may have been granted foreign subsidies that could distort the EU internal market,” the EU executive said in a press release.  Nuctech is a provider of threat detection systems including security and inspection scanners for airports, ports, or customs points in railways or roads located at borders, as well as the provision of related services.  EU officials worry that Nuctech may have received unfair support from China in tender contracts, prices and conditions that can’t be reasonably matched by other market players in the EU.  “We want a level playing field on the market for such [threat detection] systems, keeping fair opportunities for competitors, customers such as border authorities,” Executive Vice President Teresa Ribera said in a statement, noting that this is the first in-depth investigation launched by the Commission on its own initiative under the FSR regime.  Nuctech may need to offer commitments to address the Commission’s concerns at the end of the in-depth probe, which can also end in “redressive measures” or with a non-objection decision.   The FSR is aimed at making sure that companies operating in the EU market do so without receiving unfair support from foreign governments. In its first two years of enforcement, it has come under criticism for being cumbersome on companies and not delivering fast results.  In a statement, Nuctech acknowledged the Commission’s decision to open an in-depth investigation. “We respect the Commission’s role in ensuring fair and transparent market conditions within the European Union,” the company said. It said it would cooperate with the investigation: “We trust in the integrity and impartiality of the process and hope our actions will be evaluated on their merits.” TEMU RAIDED In a separate FSR probe, the Commission also made an unannounced inspection of Chinese e-commerce platform Temu.  “We can confirm that the Commission has carried out an unannounced inspection at the premises of a company active in the e-commerce sector in the EU, under the Foreign Subsidies Regulation,” an EU executive spokesperson said in an emailed statement on Thursday.   Temu’s Europe headquarters in Ireland were dawn-raided last week, a person familiar with Chinese business told POLITICO. Mlex first reported on the raids on Wednesday.  The platform has faced increased scrutiny in Brussels and across the EU. Most recently, it was accused of breaching the EU’s Digital Services Act by selling unsafe products, such as toys. The platform has also faced scrutiny around how it protects minors and uses age verification.  Temu did not respond to a request for comment.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Der Konflikt zwischen der EU und den USA spitzt sich zu und trägt einen neuen Namen. Elon Musk. Die Strafe der EU gegen seine Plattform X löst eine Welle politischer Angriffe aus. Musk stellt die EU infrage, verbündet sich mit rechten Akteuren und verstärkt ein transatlantisches Spannungsfeld, das weit über die digitale Welt hinausgeht. Gordon Repinski ordnet ein, warum diese Auseinandersetzung eine Probe für die europäische Regulierungskraft ist und welche geopolitischen Muster sich darin spiegeln . Im 200-Sekunden-Interview spricht Damian von Boeselager, Mitgründer und EU-Abgeordneter von Volt, über die Regulierung von Plattformen. Er erläutert, warum der Digital Services Act aus seiner Sicht notwendig ist, welche Risiken von algorithmischer Machtkonzentration ausgehen und ob Europa langfristig eine öffentlich getragene Alternative zu privaten sozialen Netzwerken braucht. Anschließend berichtet Rasmus Buchsteiner aus Brüssel über den erzielten Kompromiss im Migrationspaket. Er erklärt, wie Rückführungen, Solidaritätsmechanismen und neue Herkunftsstaatlisten zusammenhängen und wie der Besuch von Wolodymyr Selenskyj zum europäischen Jahresendspurt gehört. Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig. Für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Der Berlin Playbook-Newsletter bietet jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. Jetzt kostenlos abonnieren. Mehr von Host und POLITICO Executive Editor Gordon Repinski: Instagram: @gordon.repinski | X: @GordonRepinski. Legal Notice (Belgium) POLITICO SRL Forme sociale: Société à Responsabilité Limitée Siège social: Rue De La Loi 62, 1040 Bruxelles Numéro d’entreprise: 0526.900.436 RPM Bruxelles info@politico.eu www.politico.eu