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.
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.
The Autistic Community doesn’t deserve to mentioned in the same sentence as his.
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.
Win win?
Hmm…EU citizens would be winning, but who else?
Musk could keep doing whatever it is he’s doing right now.
He could not though - losing the EU would be a win for him how?
Musk could keep doing whatever it is he’s doing right now.
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.
hehe, double the fines every day of noncompliance. I heard you like fines, so I added some fines on your fines and some fines on top of those to go with your fines. Don’t fuck with EU regulators.
Even without doubling, fines on a regular basis can hurt. Norway imposed $100k fine on FB on a daily basis, and FB is scrambling to do something about it, especially before other countries in the EU follow suit
100k isn’t that much. However, if the EU decides to go for the total 6% of global revenue it will cost Musk a shitload of money.
100k is a lot when you consider how small Norway’s population is. If you extend that same ratio per capita to the rest of the EU, FB would go broke.
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.
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I also read the term and though… this fits.
Twitter served a purpose as it allowed yelling into a crowd and people interested could tune into your yelling. Especially for official announcements it was great. I see that there is a need for a broadcast method for companies and even more for governments. Mastodon seems to fit better. It allows them to run their own server and keep it closed so no need to moderate users but still able to have reach.
He always complies with everything e.g. Turkey and many authoritarian governments want without a peep. The EU (and an even more shocking example: Brazil) are the only chumps who let him troll with impunity. Time to change that.
Is 6% of global revenue enough? Or is that just a foot note in the books on the cost of doing business?
It’s 6% of revenue, not profit. So it cuts even more into profits as it doesn’t allow a company in breach of regulations to reduce the impact of the fine by adding expenses that will temporarily lower their profit.
Even more spicy, they can also impose periodic penalties up to 5% of the average daily worldwide turnover for each day of delay in complying. That shit can bankrupt you.
Or Musk could pull Twitter out of the EU.
That would be so wonderful. The EU economy would probably take off just from the saved time/brainpower, lol.
6% of profit would mean that EU owes twitter money.
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
Hire? There’s enough nazis dying to get that job for free.
This a French scientific study showing how the Russian regime tries to influence the political debate in France with Twitter accounts, especially before the last parliamentary elections. The goal is to promote a party that is more favorable to them, namely, the far right. https://hal.science/hal-04629585v1/file/Chavalarias_23h50_Putin_s_Clock.pdf
In France, we have a concept called the “Republican front” that is kind of tacit agreement between almost all parties, left, center and right, to work together to prevent far-right from reaching power and threaten the values of the French Republic. This front has been weakening at every election, with the far right rising and lately some of the traditional right joining them. But it still worked out at the last one, far right was given first by the polls, but thanks to the front, they eventually ended up 3rd.
What this article says, is that the Russian regime has been working for years to invert this front and push most parties to consider that it is part of the left that is against the Republic values, more than the far right.
One of their most cynical tactic is using videos from the Gaza war to traumatize leftists until they say something that may sound antisemitic. Then they repost those words and push the agenda that the left is antisemitic and therefore against the Republican values.At this point is there even a single country that Russia isn’t undermining? They are actively paying German far right politicians.
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.
DSA enforcement is spicy, since the EU can create its own team to fight disinfo on Twitter, and charge it to Musk, in addition to the massive fine.
Please tell me that, as someone outside the EU, I also reap the benefits of this spicy awesomeness.
As long as Twitter does business in the EU, it has to follow the law.
Only 6%? That needs a zero slapped onto the end of it.
Still, it’s revenue (not just profit)
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 😁
I mean, yea. Of course it has become a haven for disinformation. That’s why he bought it.
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?
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.
When the vast majority spreads on several platforms, you can very much beat it by blocking it. We’re not doing it not because we can’t but because letting it spread is profitable. Prior to the invention of modern social media the problem of misinformation was much smaller. Yes of course it will never disappear but we don’t need it to disappear.
They’ve done research about deplatforming, and it’s actually really effective in reducing content - most of the followers aren’t motivated enough to jump to a different website to follow their conspiracy content.
I wish you could’ve lived in the wild days of eating lead and radiation well before the internet was even an idea.
The article states that the EU is objecting to a couple of particular things:
The EU said X’s blue checks policy was deceiving and had been abused by malicious actors. The checks were initially created as as way to verify users like government officials, public figures and journalists, in efforts to limit misinformation, but Musk changed that policy, allowing users to buy blue check accounts. The new policy has been abused by fraudsters to impersonate U.S. politician Hillary Clinton and author J.K. Rowling, among many other celebrities.
The platform also didn’t respect an obligation to provide a searchable and reliable advertisement repository and limited access to its public data to researchers, the Commission said.
This is not some amorphous campaign against disinformation, it’s a challenge to two specific policies of X.
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
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.
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.
Going after platforms for the speech of their users,
The EU is going after X for selling blue check marks while marketing them as a sign of trustworthiness. They claim this is misleading. They’re not going after X for anything the users said.
