Over the past few years, the trend towards conflict between online platforms and states has been most evident between Western and Russian information spaces, but global contradictions have also had broad consequences for digital service management, writes Yuri Kolotaev, Senior Lecturer at the Department of European Studies, Faculty of International Relations at St. Petersburg State University.
Social media platforms have departed from their role as a simple means of communication, and emerged as powerful tools for shaping public opinion. The international practice of regulating the digital environment has demonstrated complicated and constantly changing relations between technology giants and political structures. Due to the ongoing geopolitical situation and violations of Russian legislation, large companies, particularly Google and Microsoft, have actually left the Russian market or maintained a minimal level of support for their services. However, digital fragmentation has spread beyond the usual dividing lines. Particularly obvious changes are taking place within the Western segment of the Internet, where, with the coming to power of the Trump administration in the United States, a gap in approaches to the digital space is emerging.
The ideological differences between Western countries in their relations with large online platforms date back to the mid-2010s. Major scandals related to political campaigning via social networks, such as the Trump election campaign or the Brexit movement in 2016, demonstrated the potential of social networks to advance narratives. The need to control the information environment compelled liberal forces to securitize content moderation issues. The main platforms (X, YouTube, etc.), which experienced ideological differences with Trump’s policies, chose to contain the conservative agenda and intensified their activities to eliminate “misinformation”. At this stage, digital platforms, together with EU institutions, sought to develop a system of “soft” governance. It implied that platforms would make voluntary commitments to filter out fake news and strive for transparency in content selection algorithms.
However, as the debate surrounding the political status of social networks developed in the late 2010s, the influence of social platforms began to be viewed not as an internal problem, but as a matter of national security. This was influenced by the ongoing discussion about external interference in the electoral processes of Western countries. The main accusations were directed at Russia, despite the lack of any conclusive evidence. Later, China and Iran were also accused of “external online disinformation”. The COVID-19 pandemic, which has affected both digitalisation and the growth of false information on the Internet, only intensified this trend.
From this point on, the US began to focus on non-Western applications like TikTok, which it accused of having an excessive influence on citizens and promoting “alien ideological views”. Having initially supported a similar viewpoint, the EU countries began to increasingly voice criticism of American services. The revision of the “soft” approach through the development of supranational legislation was a kind of reaction to the fact that the EU lacks large social networks of its own.
The consequence of the EU’s emphasis on its own digital independence has been the perception of US platforms as “foreign entities”. This gave rise to the idea that if platforms owned by China can pose a threat to American interests, then American services can be just as risky for Europe. Internal changes in the governance structure of online platforms have reinforced this trend. In particular, the change of ownership and political vision of Elon Musk’s social network X (formerly Twitter), showed that large online platforms are capable of privately violating the liberal consensus on content moderation.
Since the beginning of 2025, the gap in the approaches of the EU and the US has been widening noticeably. In a sense, we are talking about the formation of different digital spaces on both sides of the Atlantic. A striking example of this gap has been the strategy of Meta (banned in Russia). In January 2025, it announced the abolition of its fact-checking system for American users, while leaving it for the European audience in accordance with EU requirements. The move was a result of the company’s adaptation to the political situation in the United States. However, this step also reflected the company’s priority to maintain access to the European market. Thus, various content moderation practices were created for Western countries within one platform. The company’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, expressed his willingness to cooperate with the Trump administration, which caused concern among European regulators.
A similar picture has been observed with other social networks. It has manifested most acutely in interaction with X. The EU has repeatedly warned the platform about the need to comply with the DSA, threatening sanctions for failure to comply with their requirements. At the end of 2023, the EU even launched an investigation into the political impartiality of X due to suspicions of “unscrupulous” political practices. By the time Donald Trump returned to the White House in 2025, the contradictions with the social network had also received a response from “traditional” European media. Thus, the European Federation of Journalists announced it would stop publishing materials on X in order to protest the growing politicisation of the platform, emphasizing its transformation into a “disinformation and propaganda machine”.
In this regard, the election campaign in Germany in January 2025, during which X provided a platform for the far-right Alternative for Germany party, became the most acute phase in the relationship between American platforms and European politicians. Elon Musk’s overt support for Alternative for Germany, which coincided with criticism by other American figures of Europe’s orientation towards liberal values, led to frustration at the national and supranational levels.
The EU-X conflict captures the clash of EU interests with the new American practice of digital regulation. The fight against external interference has manifested itself in an unexpected vector for the EU, illustrating the technological stagnation of the European space. The EU’s lag in network technologies is becoming an additional factor in transatlantic contradictions. As a result, the decisions of supranational institutions and the strategic steps of American companies clearly demonstrate how norms and political guidelines directly fragment information flows.
Thus, the West’s internal conflict over online regulation shows that the once open digital sphere has become divided. Algorithms, having turned into “meta-legislation”, draw the boundaries between sovereignties. The opposition of the supranational EU to the technological dominance of the US has highlighted the modern role of platforms in international relations. Moderation and fact-checking have become a subject of geopolitics even for Western countries, and the redefinition of the boundaries between “freedom” and “threat” has become a stumbling block. Despite the fact that the Western infrastructure is still united, the narratives and meanings have already become fragmented.
