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.
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?
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.
I don’t go on that shithole site, but it seems like he not just letting disinformation go wild, but banning info
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.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.
