EU pressures Elon Musk to be fully compliant with bloc’s new social media regulations

02/02/2023 / By Belle Carter

Top European Union (EU) official Thierry Breton told Twitter CEO Elon Musk that the latter’s platform will have to “do more” over the coming months in preparation for the microblogging site’s compliance with the bloc’s incoming social media regulations.

Breton, the EU commissioner for the internal market and social media, went on a video call two months ago in which Musk expressed intentions to fully comply with the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA).

DSA and the Digital Markets Act (DMA) aim to create a “safer digital space” where the fundamental rights of users are protected and to establish a level playing field for businesses. Together they form a single set of new rules that will be applicable across the whole bloc.

“The next few months will be crucial to transform commitments into reality,” Breton said. “We need to see progress toward full compliance with the DSA. My team will follow closely the work by Twitter and by all other online platforms.”

The law also carries hefty fines for noncompliance and the potential to block a platform’s services in case of certain repeated infringements.

According to a summary of the recent call provided by the EU commissioner’s office, the discussion was constructive and delved further into details than in previous meetings. An aide to Breton said the conversation lasted more than an hour.

The commission expects to conduct “a stress test on Twitter in the coming weeks.” According to the aide, the test might involve a meeting between the tech giant and commission officials to look in detail at which elements of the social media site’s practices are compliant, or not, with the new legislation.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the DSA’s requirements for large social-media companies include maintaining systems for taking down content that European national governments consider to be illegal and providing users with tools to appeal if they believe the material they posted was removed unfairly. It also requires regular outside audits. (Related: UK, EU demand Elon Musk keep censoring content on Twitter.)

“Good meeting with @ThierryBreton regarding EU DSA. The goals of transparency, accountability & accuracy of information are aligned with ours. @CommunityNotes will be transformational for the latter,” Musk tweeted following the latest meeting. Community Notes is the company’s crowdsourced fact-checking feature.

The move has already solicited negative feedback. The Twitter account called Little Red Riding Pills replied to Musk’s tweet with: “Free and unfettered speech is more important than ensuring ‘accuracy of information.’ Let the consumer of information beware and let speech be free. Twitter shouldn’t be Wikipedia.” Wikipedia is a site where anyone can edit nearly any page and “improve” articles immediately.

EU to ban TikTok if it will not comply with new content regulations

The social media platform TikTok has been banned in several states in America despite its efforts to evade political and regulatory pressures in the country. Breton warned EU’s laws may also sting the app as it also poses “several unacceptable risks for European users.”

CNBC reported that Breton has already alerted TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew in a meeting this month that the bloc may ban the app if it will not comply with new rules on digital content well ahead of a Sep. 1 deadline.

In previous years, the EU was tolerating the Chinese-owned app, while U.S. lawmakers have been aggressively banning it over national security concerns. A proposed bipartisan bill also seeks to block the app from operating in the United States.

“It’s not that the EU is soft on tech. Europe has fined U.S. tech giants for violating the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation,” the news outlet noted. However, TikTok has stayed out of regulatory scrutiny partly because it’s kept out of the crosshairs of commercial interests in Europe. But things will change now, officials said.

“The data dragon TikTok must be placed under the surveillance of the European authorities. Europe must finally wake up,” German lawmaker Moritz Korner said.

According to Abe Yousef of Sensor Tower, a company that provides industry-leading App Store Optimization (ASO) data and key metrics to monitor apps’ marketplace performance in real-time, TikTok has around 275 million monthly active users in Europe as of December 2022, which is more than one-third of the continent’s 750 million population. It is also the most-downloaded social media app last year in Italy and Spain, according to data.ai, formerly called App Annie.

Visit Censorship.news for news related to laws and guidelines implemented on digital platforms to suppress free speech.

Watch the video where investigative journalist Jefferey Jaxen and “The HighWire” host Del Bigtree discuss the EU’s passing of the DSA.

This video is from the GalacticStorm channel on Brighteon.com.