The EU asks Elon Musk to “prove” that X is not spreading disinformation – 24 hours to respond
In response, the billionaire called for a "list of violations."
EU Commissioner Thierry Breton warned Elon Musk that X (formerly Twitter) “is being used to spread illegal content and disinformation in the EU” after Hamas attacks on Israel and reminded him that the Digital Services Act (DSA), which came into force in August, “sets very clear obligations on content moderation.”
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
Breton writes that the illegal content marked by the “relevant authorities” is still on the site, which means that the social network has not reacted to it. The law, as the commissioner notes, requires X to be “removed promptly and objectively.”
He also mentioned in the letter the massive reports by the media and other organizations that have been circulating old photos of armed conflicts or even video game footage on the site as content for current events.
At the end of September, EU regulators had already criticized Elon Musk’s platform for spreading disinformation, and EU Commissioner Věra Jourová said that X had “the most disinformation” – even compared to Facebook.
At the end of the letter, Breton called on Elon Musk to send a “quick, accurate and complete response” to the request within the next 24 hours (it will be included in the EU Digital Services Act compliance file for X).
Meanwhile, the owner of X posted a short message on X.
“Our policy is that everything is open and transparent, an approach that I know the EU supports. Please list the violations you are referring to on X so that the public can see them“, Musk wrote.
Our policy is that everything is open source and transparent, an approach that I know the EU supports.
Please list the violations you allude to on 𝕏, so that that the public can see them.
Merci beaucoup.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 10, 2023
Earlier, Elon Musk fired the anti-disinformation team, and X began to actively use the fact-checking tool, Community NotesThe EU asks Elon Musk to “prove” that X is not spreading disinformation – they gave him 24 hours to respond as the main means of countering misleading information. The social network has also recently removed headlines from news shared by third-party sites, which has also made it harder for users to find reliable content.
Later, X provided more accurate information, saying that “over 500 unique notes were created in the last 3 days, including reports of fake videos made using game simulators and other unrelated content.” The social network says that it is actively “working on changes to help automatically display annotations for even more posts with relevant videos and images,” and that it is “scaling up” notifications for people who have previously interacted with content, later verifying the facts with a note. The company does not disclose how many users have received such notifications.
