The European Commission said on Friday it was stepping up its investigation into whether Elon Musk's social media network X breached EU rules on content moderation with requests for information and an order for it to retain relevant documents.

The European Commission has stepped up its investigation into social media platform X for a potential breach of EU rules on content moderation with requests for information and an order for it to retain relevant documents,

STOCKHOLM/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - TikTok, Shein, Xiaomi and three other Chinese companies were named in a privacy complaint filed on Thursday by Austrian advocacy group Noyb which claimed the firms were unlawfully sending European Union user data to China.

Austrian advocacy group Noyb has filed privacy complaints against TikTok and five other Chinese companies in the EU. Noyb claims that these tech firms are unlawfully transferring the data of users in the European Union to China.

The pushback comes as the emboldened leaders of US tech companies, including Google CEO Sundar Pichai, have been courting President-elect Donald Trump, with Tim Cook and Mark Zuckerberg urging him directly to combat EU regulatory enforcement.

After Mark Zuckerberg's big announcement that Meta will no longer fact check, Google is also sending a message to the European Union: The search giant is opting out of a new EU law that requires fact checks.

Google has expressed its unwillingness to comply with the EU’s new fact-checking law. Google will not add fact-checking features to search results and YouTube videos. In addition, it will not use any fact-checking data when it ranks or removes any content.