Thierry BretonCommissioner of the European Union, has sent a notice to Elon Musk to take measures to prevent misinformation that is plaguing the social network Twitter, which is now called X, about the situation in Israel and Gaza, and the management that the company is carrying out in this regard. The notice is contained in an urgent letter, which Breton has sent to Musk and has published both on said social network and in the new profile that he has just opened on Bluesky, and in which the social network is reminded of the responsibilities it has according to the Digital Services Law.
The letter comes after a wave of disinformation in X, reported by researchers and fact-checking professionals, following the situation between Israel and Gaza that began after Hamas’ attacks on Israel. On the one hand, it is more difficult to identify the news on the timeline after a few days ago Elon Musk decided to remove the headline from the news links and leave only the photo. On the other hand, there are users, some of them verified, disseminating and sharing viral videos of content not directly related to the situation in the area who claim that they are attacks that have occurred in recent days in the area.
Following the terrorist attacks by Hamas against ??, we have indications of X/Twitter being used to disseminate illegal content & disinformation in the EU.
Urgent letter to @elonmusk on #DSA obligations?? pic.twitter.com/avMm1LHq54
— Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton) October 10, 2023
Given this, Breton points out to Elon Musk that they have «data that its platform is being used to spread illegal content and disinformation in the European Union. Let me remind you that the Digital Services Law establishes very specific obligations in relation to content moderation«. Specifically, Breton has pointed out the expansion of «false and manipulated images and facts on its platform in the EU, such as reused old images from unrelated armed conflicts, or military videos that actually come from video games«.
In addition, he has referred to the company’s public interest policy, which has recently changed, noting that these changes “have left many European users in uncertainty» to know what type of content the platform allows. On the other hand, he has suggested that the social network is not responding adequately to requests to manage “potentially illegal content» on your platform.
This means that “When you receive notices of illegal content in the EU, you must be diligent, timely and objective in taking action, and remove relevant content where justified. We have, from qualified sources, reports of potentially illegal content circulating on your service despite notices from relevant authorities«.
As is usual since Musk’s purchase, the social network has not responded to Breton, but Musk has responded with a brief message in response to the commissioner’s publication in X. In it he has indicated that his policy “is that everything is open source and transparent, an approach that I know the EU supports. Please list the violations you allude to in X, so the public can see them«.
The company has recently eliminated its disinformation reporting tool, and has eliminated or reduced the security teams responsible for managing disinformation, turning to its citizen source checking tool, Community Notes, as the main source of addressing disinformation. .
The account for this service posted shortly after Breton shared this upload a message which said that more than 500 unique notes had been generated in the last three days, among which there were several alluding to “fake videos made with game simulators«, others of «out of context» and others for videos cataloging them as «unrelated«.
In addition, they added that they are working on changes so that notes automatically appear in more types of posts with images and videos, and that they are speeding up notifications to people who have interacted with content to which a check note has been added. of facts.
It is not the first time that EU officials have expressed concern about the amount of misinformation on this social network, and According to a recent EU report, it has the highest presence of disinformation and manipulated information of all. A few months ago, the EU warned Musk that he had to control disinformation on the internet, or they would take action. It is unknown if they will act this time, and what kind of measures they would take if so.
