The tech mogul’s platform is the first to get hit with charges under new EU social media law.
The European Union is calling Elon Musk to order over how he turned social media site X into a haven for disinformation and illegal content.
The EU Commission on Friday formally charged X for failing to respect EU social media law. The platform could face a sweeping multi-million euro fine in a pioneering case under the bloc’s new Digital Services Act (DSA), a law to clamp down on toxic and illegal online content and algorithms.
Musk’s X has been in Brussels’ crosshairs ever since the billionaire took over the company, formerly known as Twitter, in 2022. X has been accused of letting disinformation and illegal hate speech run wild, roll out misleading authentication features and blocking external researchers from tools to scrutinize how malicious content on the platforms spreads.
The European Commission oversees X and two dozens of the world’s largest online platforms including Facebook, YouTube and others. The EU executive’s probe into Musk’s firm opened in December 2023 and was the first formal investigation. Friday’s charges are the first-ever under the DSA.
Infringements of the DSA could lead to fines of up to 6 percent of a X’s global revenue.
I don’t go on that shithole site, but it seems like he not just letting disinformation go wild, but banning info
And promoting disinfo. The blue checkmarks are basically just a way to pay for prioritized disinformation-spreading.
Also, he just says he’s autistic. As far as is known, he’s never actually gotten an evaluation.
So he’s not just using autism as an excuse, he might not even have autism. And he wouldn’t, sadly, be the first to pretend he did to excuse his behavior.
What if Musk pulls Twitter out of the EU? What fraction of their revenue is that, I wonder?
Normally this would be too crazy to even consider, but… this is Musk we’re talking about. I’m sure he hates the EU government’s guts already. And that totally sounds like an impulse decision he would make.
I think his main motivation for continuing to run the company is to spread his agenda. If it only costs him a small percent of revenue to keep pushing Nazi taking points, thenbi think he’ll just pay the fines.
As someone who works in the field, DSA-like regulation is coming to many countries over the next couple years. We also have regulations on political ads that are similar to DSA already in many countries already. Mega platforms like X have little choice but to get compliant
We can only hope he does. More people move over to mastodon with large companies running their own instances in the ecosystem.
This would allow for a federated broadcast system similar to how Twitter is now used, but if mastodon gets critical mass and governments start using it like they do Vichy Twitter it would be great news.
If that leads to some extra government grants for the further development of mastodon and the fediverse… Possibly even under the guise of standing up to big american tech… we all win.
But if he does, he signed the Death warrant of his own platform. A lot of governments and mega corps are there because of users. Governments will all need to replace it immediately if they find out their main broadcasting platform could be turned off tomorrow.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a government institution in the EU above the municipal level which doesn’t have a mastodon server or account on some government server.
A lot of companies that loudly “pulled out of Russia” are still working in Russia.
Twitter’s business is advertising. If they shun the EU, EU companies just aren’t allowed to buy ads without getting in hot water themselves.
Is 6% of global revenue enough? Or is that just a foot note in the books on the cost of doing business?
That could realistically be around 1/3 yearly profit in a reasonable company (18% operating margin is common). No idea whether Twitter is currently profitable (it wasn’t when he bought it).
Question still stands, is it enough?
yeah it seems big enough that it might be cheaper to hire moderators
I mean that seems reasonably punishing yeah, not nearly the hours worth of profit usually charged to companies breaking the law. I believe the EU can even enforce its own content moderation on the site and charge the costs of that to Musk so its pointless for a company to not follow the laws at that point …
Musk will buy a company and tank it for the memes. I don’t think a warning shot like this will sway his decisions on the direction of said company. The people making the decisions aren’t culpable, the company is. The people making the decisions will just leave to a different company and we can start the whole process over again.
I hope it’s enough and I sound like a bitter old man.
Then he can tank it for the memes. Do that to enough companies and the “weird genius techbro” mask starts slipping and the venture capitalists no longer want to bankroll you and you start being seen as a liability.
God that would be great to see, what a temper tantrum that would be.
Historically, no, because companies still misbehave, the fines aren’t high enough for them to not try and see whether they get away with stuff.
OTOH, historically, yes, because once fines come flying companies shape up.
That is, they’re willing to gamble on that initial fine, but absolutely won’t tank the recurring fines for continued infringement.
Only 6%? That needs a zero slapped onto the end of it.
They need to first move out their official’s accounts out of twitter If they really want to lead by example, there is Threads and mastodon and what not!
Seeing how Facebook and Instagram have been shutting down posts about Israeli atrocities in Gaza. and deleting Palestinian Journalists accounts, Such moves to try and police what is fake news and what isn’t by governments according to their own interests and biases is an attack on free speech and freedom of the press.
They already post on Mastodon https://ec.social-network.europa.eu/@EUCommission
Am guessing it’s the case of trying to be on all social media platforms where people are.
Thierry breton himself does’t post on mastodon, If my memory is right he had an account on mastodon but doesn’t post there! celebrities need and audience that’s why they are hooked to Twitter and are trying to shape it to their liking.
The European Commission oversees X and two dozens of the world’s largest online platforms
Sometimes it’s fun to be a grammar Nazi.
Knowing that omitting the word “other” implies that the hangout of REAL Nazis is at most the 25th largest online platform is one of those times 😁
Not saying this out of any support for Elon or Twitter, just because I respect free speech.
It would be nice if the US pushed back on the EU on this type of thing. Going after platforms for the speech of their users, especially with a government mandated monetary incentive behind it, is an open door for censorship and unfairness. A US company, born under the auspices of a nation where free speech is literally rule number one, should be defended by the US government when other nations create rules attempting to stifle that free speech (especially when those rules also come with huge fines which siphon money, however much, from the US economy).
Governments should be developing ways to stop bots and botnets not stifling human public expression, no matter how disagreeable to the political sensibilities of those governments that expression may be.
The issues with the US bulling their way in here is that while they set themselves up as the arbiters of free speech… these are not your counties. These are democratic institutions who have made independently made these decisions based on their concepts of what constitutes safeguarding the welfare of their citizens. They have determined that repeat targetted provably untrue propaganda based out of intellectual dishonesty that is designed to leave people angry at minorities creates conditions where people logically come to the conclusion that the killing, oppressing and subjugation of people to the point they see death as preferable to life is not okay.
The version of “free speech” that constantly gets toted as a universal good is essentially an experiment. When you see how something is functionally shaping your society and you see that while aspects of it are very healthy and cause additional stability and protection to people but a misuse is causing some people to be treated as subhuman then it’s time to amend the rules. A government should be held accountable for the welfare of all it’s citizens and those non-citizens whom it has temporary sovereignty over. Each country has the right to determine how best to initiate that directive. You are very welcome to defend your version of free speech as defined by American sensibilities on American ground, but American meddling in the ethics of countries whose value systems deal in more nuance would be very unwelcome. Quite frankly since the application of “free speech” under American terms has caused so much political stratification in their own homeland to the point where civil war or a breakdown of other democratic norms are snowballing they need to see to their own house before they can critique other nations.
US companies can
fuck offwithdraw from the EU.Also the US is not pro free speech. The first amendment only prevents the government from censoring not private entities such as twitter and other social media. They can in fact and do censor their users so them crying wolf about being censored themselves is ironic. After all they are not even human unlike (well some of) their users.
Oh you mean the same government that was revealed to have worked with Twitter to ban political opposition under the same reasoning of misinformation and hate speech?
Disinformation is words
It spreads on twitter, it spreads on facebook, on tiktok, on youtube, on discord, text messages, books, speeches, talking to coworkers. This is like the war on drugs except even easier to circumvent any bans. Youre not gonna beat disinformation by trying to block it.
You’re also not going to beat it by not trying to deal with it. The transition from twitter being an unreliable source to becoming an unbridled dumpster fire of disinformation and hate campaigns has a direct correlation with Musk taking specific steps to cater to those audiences while ripping out any facilities to filter it.
It’s not all or nothing, like basically everything else in life, it requires balance. Just like you don’t have to “beat” drugs to help drug users find a better path, you don’t have to “beat” disinformation in order to help stop it from spreading. You can take steps when/where they make sense to limit the damage and give people a chance to pull their head out of the cesspool to get enough air that society can function in a manner in tune with reality to some degree.
Just like you don’t have to “beat” drugs to help drug users find a better path, you don’t have to “beat” disinformation in order to help stop it from spreading
The war on drugs notably did not involve helping users find a better path, it only tried to block the path of drug use, with pretty disastrous results as drug users became pariahs pushed to more dangerous avenues of drug sources to get around the blocks.
The only thing we are talking about here is a block from one path of disinformation. Theyll get pushed to the fringes of more dangerous sources of misinformation.
I’m not talking about the war on drugs, I’m talking about the fact that rehab facilities, education, counseling/medical aid are helpful to curtailing an out of control drug epidemic and reducing the negative impact on society.
Just because the “war on drugs” failed doesn’t drug-related issues can’t be addressed to some degree. You focus on completely blocking misinformation so it doesn’t exist, I’m trying to point out other considerations: ranking, exposure, flagging/reviewing posts, community notes to provide additional context. These are all things that exist, that are used heavily, that impact our information feeds 24/7, and that will continue to be used to significant effect on the general population, whether for good or for bad. More likely the latter if everyone adopts perspectives like yours.
I am talking about the war on drugs, as that is what this is akin to, purely trying to block disinformation.
All of the “other considerations” youve added, except for community context, are just tools to block. Like the war on drugs using drug tests, drug sniffing dogs, report hotlines, methods to find drugs and punish for it.
Community context is a good example of things that do work, that is akin to educating people about drugs rather than trying to block them. But twitter has that tool, twitter is being punished for not blocking misinformation.
The specific charges noted in the article have similar nuances to the examples i gave. They are fixable and addressable and impactful. They do not require a full block on misinformation, which is obviously not something that’s possible to enforce effectively and not what’s being expected of X.
I just wrote out a long response, ending with the idea that if misinformation gets removed from twitter, its only because its moved somewhere less visible to the public. And then realized i was arguing disinformation would be less visible to the public.
Kick Musk’s ass EU
No, but he is finding out why twitter had all of its policies on combatting misinformation before he took over and gutted the staff… to prevent getting sued. You can say anything you want in America and the government can’t tell you that you aren’t allowed to say it, but you are still accountable for the damages caused by what you say… just ask Alex Jones.
But operating in other countries doesn’t afford the same protections from government scrutiny.
Disinformation campaigns are part of the reason social media is causing as much social strife in the world. It is not outside a logical line of thought that governments are going to attempt to minimize the damages from platforms like Twitter when they can. You may not beat misinformation, but you can minimize the financial incentive to promote it if you fine the fuck out of it when you find it.
Youre mixing up the accusation that twitter isnt stopping misinformation with an accusation that twitter itself is speaking misinformation. We’re talking about them being held responsible for what other people say.
Milo Yiannoppolous agrees with you, which is why he’s such a huge celebrity today.
I’m no fan of Musk but given how other platforms like Meta, Reddit and even TikTok are kowtowing to Zionist pressure to clamp down on Palestinian support I’m extremely suspicious of this move. It seems like a convenient excuse for greater censorship.
You see, Twitter does that AND deliberately elevates far right conspiracies and other extremist content AND deliberately censors or at least delays opposing views.
I’m not saying that the EU shouldn’t also go after the other platforms you mention (they ABSOLUTELY should and probably will), but Twitter is tied with Facebook if not alone in first place when it comes to spreading disinformation.
Hey, did Nick Fuentes tell you to write that?
