A leading EU official has denied taking a softer approach to Big Tech, citing a “very clear legal basis” for regulators and pointing to several ongoing investigations into the likes of social media platform X and Meta.

The FT reported earlier this week that the EU was reassessing investigations into Apple, Google and Meta — a process that could ultimately lead to the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, scaling back or changing the focus of their probes.

However, speaking to CNBC on Thursday, Henna Virkkunen, the European Commission’s executive vice president for tech sovereignty, pushed back.

“We have our Digital Service Act that came into force a little bit more than one year ago, and there is several formal proceedings going on against, we can say, all the big platforms: Meta platforms, Instagram, Facebook, also on X and with TikTok,” Virkkunen said.

“We are continuing the work, so there is not any new decisions made. So we are doing the investigations [to see] if they are complying with our rules,” she said.

The Digital Services Act or DSA, which came into full effect in 2024, gives EU institutions the power to regulate Big Tech in a bid to prevent illegal and harmful activities online, and clamp down on disinformation.

Despite these new powers, however, there are growing questions about how the EU is actually going to enforce the rules, particularly in the aftermath of President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

“It remains to be seen what the EU will do, as some investigations have gone further than others, but it is also clear that U.S. tech companies will try to use the Trump administration to push back on EU rules,” Dexter Thillien, lead analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, told CNBC.

It comes as the tech industry attempts to cozy up to Trump ahead of his second term as president. Tesla’s Elon Musk, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Zuckerberg will attend Trump’s inauguration next week, according to NBC news.

Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg last week, meanwhile, called on the incoming U.S. president to look at the EU’s approach to Big Tech, saying the way the bloc applies competition rules is “almost like a tariff.”

EU official Virkkunen is one of a new team of politicians that began their work as members of the EU’s executive arm in December. Until now, the bloc has been considered a leader of tech regulation and has opened the door to several probes into the behavior of Big Tech companies.

When asked if she was considering taking a softer approach to the sector, Virkkunen said: “We [have a] very clear legal basis and regulation rules in Europe, and of course, now we are fully enforcing those rules.”

Virkkunen did not say whether she was feeling pressure as a result of Trump’s return to the White House. Instead, she said, “all companies, whether American, European or Chinese, have to respect the EU’s regulations.”

In December 2023, Musk’s X was hit with the EU’s first probe under the Digital Services Act. The European Commission is assessing whether X breached transparency obligations and its duties to counter illegal content.

At the time, the institution said it was specifically assessing areas linked to risk management, content moderation, dark patterns, advertising transparency and data access for researchers.

As Musk continues to court the far-right ahead of an election in Germany — including hosting a live discussion with AfD party leader Alice Weidel — there are questions about whether the European Commission will assess this conversation as part of the investigation.

“This is not about Elon Musk. It’s about X,” Virkkunen said.

“X is [a] very large online platform, they have to take their responsibilities, and they have to assess and mitigate the risks, for example, what they are posting for the electoral processes and for civic discourse. But [the European] commission is already investigating X on this, and the scope of investigation is already quite large,” she said, adding that “we are all the time monitoring” in case of new developments.

Duolingo shares rose nearly 7% on Thursday following a large spike in users signing up to learn Mandarin in conjunction with soaring usage of Chinese social media app RedNote, a TikTok rival.

The company confirmed to CNBC that there’s been a 216% increase in Mandarin learners using the app compared to a year earlier. For context, Spanish, one of the most popular languages on the app, has seen a 40% increase over the same period, Duolingo said.

RedNote, or Xiaohongshu, as it’s known in China, has rocketed to become the No. 1 free app on the Apple app store, a position it’s held for most of this week. Rounding out the top five are TikTok’s Lemon8 app, U.S. social media upstart Clapper, OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Meta’s Threads.

Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case involving the future of TikTok in the U.S., and a law that could effectively ban the popular app. The justices appeared to favor upholding the law, and a decision could come as soon as Friday. TikTok is reportedly preparing for a U.S. shutdown on Sunday.

RedNote has so far been the top beneficiary of the American user exodus, seeing its U.S. app downloads increase by 20 times over the last week, according to market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. A Duolingo spokesperson told CNBC that the company’s marketing team is “forward-thinking and already has an active presence on Red, managed by our team in China.”

Duolingo offers online and mobile courses across 42 languages. According to its website, Duolingo has 48.8 million Spanish learners. French is the second most popular language on the app at 27.3 million users, while Chinese is eighth at 10.7 million.

Duolingo shares climbed 43% last year, topping the Nasdaq’s 29% gain.

WATCH: AI will continue to be catalyst for Duolingo

Snap shares closed down 5% on Thursday after the Federal Trade Commission said it would refer a complaint against the company to the Department of Justice.

The FTC’s non-public complaint involves allegations that Snapchat’s My AI chatbot poses “risks and harms to young users,” the commission said in a statement. The complaint stems from the FTC’s compliance reviews with Snap following a 2014 settlement regarding allegations of public deception pertaining to data collection by the company.

As part of the FTC’s compliance reviews of Snap, the agency said it had uncovered the possibility that the company “is violating or is about to violate the law.”

“A proceeding is in the public interest,” the FTC said in its statement.

The FTC did not specify what about the My AI chatbot its complaint was focused on, but the chatbot has previously drawn scrutiny.

A Snap spokesperson pushed back against the FTC’s claims in a statement to CNBC.

“Unfortunately, on the last day of this Administration, a divided FTC decided to vote out a proposed complaint that does not consider any of these efforts, is based on inaccuracies, and lacks concrete evidence,” the Snap spokesperson said. “It also fails to identify any tangible harm and is subject to serious First Amendment concerns.”

The spokesperson added that while the company shares the FTC’s “focus on ensuring the thoughtful development of generative AI,” Snap believes that the “complaint would stifle innovation and competition in a critical and growing sector of the economy.”

Snap debuted the My AI chatbot in 2023. It is powered by the large language models of OpenAI and Google, giving it the ability to answer user questions and provide tips and suggestions similar to ChatGPT and other AI-powered chatting tools.

The chatbot has been noted for providing problematic responses. In one instance while speaking with a reporter who was pretending to be a teenager, the chatbot answered explained how to hide the smell of alcohol and marijuana, The Washington Post reported in 2023. At the time of the chatbot’s initial release, Snap said that My AI, like other AI-powered chatbots, is “prone to hallucination and can be tricked into saying just about anything. Please be aware of its many deficiencies and sorry in advance!”

In Oct. 2023, the United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office issued a preliminary enforcement notice against Snap, alleging that the company’s My AI-related risk assessment “did not adequately assess the data protection risks posed by the generative AI technology, particularly to children.”

Although the FTC said that it voted during a closed meeting to issue a public statement about it’s case against Snap and its ensuing referral to the DOJ, it noted that FTC commissioners Melissa Holyoak and Andrew Ferguson were absent.

The FTC also pointed to a dissenting statement by Ferguson, who President-elect Donald Trump named in December to replace Lina Khan as the next FTC chair.

Ferguson noted that these kinds of referrals “are not disclosed unless and until the complaint is filed in court by the Department or the Commission.”

“I did not participate in the farcical closed meeting at which this matter was approved,” he wrote.

Ferguson added that he opposes the FTC’s complaint against Snap, but that he can’t “release a detailed analysis of its many problems,” because the case is not public. Ferguson wrote that the complaint’s interpretations of an FTC law is “wrong” and that it is “in direct conflict with the guarantees of the First Amendment.”

If the DOJ files the complaint, Ferguson said he will “release a more detailed statement about this affront to the Constitution and the rule of law.”

Watch: Snap CEO on earnings beat and new advertising products