This incident has been making quite a stir lately—a certain tech mogul was fined €120 million by the EU because of his social platform, and he directly declared that the EU should be dissolved.

Here’s what happened: his platform, X, was heavily fined for violating the EU’s content regulation laws. The EU listed three charges: First, the blue check verification has completely lost its meaning—it can be bought with money now, so users can’t tell who’s actually official. Second, the platform deliberately refused to open data to analysts. Third, the ad storage system wasn’t even properly set up.

After being fined, the mogul went all out: “The EU should be dissolved, sovereignty should be returned to each country, let governments truly represent their own people.” A certain high-ranking official in Russia even agreed, saying, “Well said.” Then he posted an even harsher comment: “How much longer can the EU last?”

Poland’s Foreign Minister Sikorski clapped back on the spot: “Go to Mars, no one there will stop you from giving Nazi salutes.”

Honestly, this whole thing is pretty enlightening for our industry. The EU’s regulatory logic—demanding platform transparency, cracking down on paid verification abuses, enforcing open data—is the same approach countries are now applying to crypto exchanges for compliance. Being fined for paid blue checks is essentially a sign that the “buying trust with money” model doesn’t work anymore, even in traditional internet businesses.

Looks like whether it’s Web2 or Web3, the main direction of regulation is consistent: want to build a big platform? Sure, but you have to play by the rules. Transparency, user protection, and data compliance—there’s no way around any of them.