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A YouTuber, Marshall Daniels—who has posted far-right-leaning videos under the name “Young Pharaoh” since 2015—tried to argue that YouTube violated his First Amendment rights by removing two videos discussing George Floyd and COVID-19. Years later, Daniels now owes YouTube nearly $40,000 in attorney fees for filing a frivolous lawsuit against YouTube owner Alphabet, Inc.

A United States magistrate judge in California, Virginia K. DeMarchi, ordered Daniels to pay YouTube $38,576 for asserting a First Amendment claim that “clearly lacked merit and was frivolous from the outset.” YouTube said this represents a conservative estimate and likely an underestimate of fees paid defending against the meritless claim.

In his defense, Daniels never argued that the fees Alphabet was seeking were excessive or could be burdensome. In making this rare decision in favor of the defendant Alphabet, DeMarchi had to consider Daniels’ financial circumstances. In his court filings, Daniels described himself as “a fledgling individual consumer,” but also told the court that he made more than $180,000 in the year before he filed his complaint. DeMarchi ruled that the fees would not be a burden to Daniels.

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The European Commission, which is tasked with tackling disinformation online, this week expressed disappointment that Twitter has failed to provide required data that all other major platforms submitted. Now Twitter has been hit with a "yellow card," Reuters reported, and could be subjected to fines if the platform doesn’t fully comply with European Union commitments by this June.

“We must have more transparency and cannot rely on the online platforms alone for the quality of information,” the commission’s vice president of values and transparency, Věra Jourová, said in a press release. “They need to be independently verifiable. I am disappointed to see that Twitter['s] report lags behind others, and I expect a more serious commitment to their obligations.”

Earlier this month, the EU’s commissioner for the internal market, Thierry Breton, met with Twitter CEO Elon Musk to ensure that Musk understood what was expected of Twitter under the EU’s new Digital Services Act (DSA). After their meeting, Musk tweeted that the EU’s “goals of transparency, accountability & accuracy of information are aligned” with Twitter’s goals. But he also indicated that Twitter would be relying on Community Notes, which let users add context to potentially misleading tweets to satisfy DSA requirements on stopping misinformation and disinformation spread. That process seems to be the issue the commission has with Twitter’s unsatisfactory report.