https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/26/elon-musk-free-speech-regulation/

Elon Musk joked earlier this month that he hoped buying Twitter won’t be too painful for him. But the self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” may indeed be inviting a world of pain for himself (and his wallet) if he sets the platform on a collision course with the growing mass of legislation now being applied to social media services all around the world.

The US lags far behind regions like Europe when it comes to digital rule-making. So Musk may simply not have noticed that the bloc just agreed on the fine detail of the Digital Services Act (DSA): A major reboot of platform rules that’s intended to harmonize governance procedures to ensure the swift removal of illegal speech, including by dialling up fines on so-called “very large online platforms” (aka, VLOPs; a classification that will likely apply to Twitter) to 6% of global annual turnover.