The EU’s Digital Services Act moved from theory to cash on 5 December 2025: the Commission’s first non-compliance decision fined X €120 million for deceptive blue checkmarks (Art. 25), ad-repository transparency (Art. 39), and researcher data access (Art. 40(12)). A separate illegal-content / manipulation probe continues.

Transparency and researcher-access duties produced Europe’s first DSA cash fine — not a “hate speech ban” holding.
Citizen impact: Very large platforms face up to 6% of worldwide turnover for DSA breaches. Canadians and Americans using those platforms feel European design and labelling changes even when Ottawa has not enacted equivalent rules. Preliminary findings are not fines.

The €120 million decision

Commission materials (press corner IP_25_2934 and the digital-strategy news page) spell out three transparency failures. They do not hold that the DSA “banned hate speech” or forced restoration of any particular political account — those are separate, often contested, content fights.

Meta and TikTok: preliminary findings

On 24 October 2025, the Commission preliminarily found TikTok and Meta breached researcher public-data access duties; Meta also faced findings on illegal-content notice/appeal mechanisms. In 2026, further Meta prelims covered addictive design (10 Jul 2026) and under-13 access controls (29 Apr 2026). Preliminary findings can become fines later — or not.

Contested: Commission: transparency and child safety. Platforms: overreach into product design. Distinguishing transparency fines from content-moderation mandates is mandatory honesty.

Bottom line

First DSA non-compliance fine is real and quantified at €120 million on X. Do not invent further fine amounts, and do not call preliminary findings “fines.”