Fortunately, after years of inaction, reagulators are stepping in. The European Union just opened an investigation into the spread of child sexual abuse material on Grok. This follows its first enforcement action in December, when it fined X €120 million ($140 million) under the Digital Services Act (DSA). While this hardly makes a dent in Musk’s vast fortune, the fine is not the point. More important is what the EU ordered X to do: redesign its scam-ridden blue-check system, tackle ad fraud, and restore researcher access so the public can understand the platform’s effects on the information landscape. These probes set the stage for a confrontation. US President Donald Trump’s new National Security Strategy illustrates the stakes of the coming slop war. Released on the same day the X fine was announced, the NSS makes clear the administration’s intention: to back social-media moguls as they spread lies, amplify hate, bolster authoritarians, and destabilize Europe from within.
Despite the predictable protests from Musk and Trump, the EU’s regulatory actions have nothing to do with attacking “free speech.” (The fine targeted economic scams; the probe targets child abuse.) Instead, these measures mark the start of what is likely to become a bitter struggle to rein in X and, more broadly, to curb the spread of AI-driven slop. What Musk and Trump portray as a fight over who has the right to speak is really a fight over who has the power to force others to listen.