Margrethe Vestager, the executive vice president of the European Commission, said Monday that regulators have increased scrutiny of Twitter since Elon Musk bought the social network.
Bobby Allyn/NPR
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Bobby Allyn/NPR
Margrethe Vestager, the executive vice president of the European Commission, said Monday that regulators have increased scrutiny of Twitter since Elon Musk bought the social network.
Bobby Allyn/NPR
COPENHAGEN, Denmark — The European Union’s competition czar has a message for new Twitter boss Elon Musk: We’re watching you.
Since Tesla’s chief executive took ownership of the social network last week promising, among other changes, to loosen rules about what people can tweet, authorities in Europe have been watching for any sign that Twitter might contravenes European speech laws.
“There is a European regulation and you have to live by it,” said Margrethe Vestager, the European Commission’s executive vice president who oversees digital policy for the 27-nation bloc, in her first interview since Musk took over Twitter. “Otherwise, we have the fines. We have the fines. We have all the assessments and all the judgments that will follow you.”
A new European law known as the Digital Services Act forces tech companies to quickly remove posts deemed illegal in the countries where the content appears. It also requires tech companies to provide users with information about how their algorithms work.
Additionally, the law requires large online platforms such as Twitter to be audited by outside experts to assess how harmful material, such as the spread of misinformation, is being handled.
“They will have to make a systematic assessment of their services, whether they can be hijacked for undermining democracy or other harmful practices, or is the service itself harmful to people, regardless of their terms of service?” Vestager said.
If tech companies don’t comply with the law, European officials can impose fines of up to 6% of annual worldwide revenue. In 2021, Twitter’s revenue was about $5 billion, making the maximum penalty possible under the law in the ballpark of $30 million.
Asked whether European regulators are now scrutinizing Twitter, Vestager replied: “Of course they are. We have a responsibility to enforce this legislation. This is what we promised. Voters, consumers and users have had promises.”
The European Union’s industry chief was quick to let Musk know shortly after the billionaire took control of Twitter last week.
When Musk tweeted that “the bird has been released,” around the time of his Twitter acquisition, referring to the company’s blue bird logo, Thierry Breton responded: “In Europe, the bird will fly according to our EU rules.” .
In Europe, the bird will fly by our rules 🇪🇺.#DSA https://t.co/95W3qzYsal
— Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton) October 28, 2022
Reuters reported earlier in the day that Musk has personally told EU officials that he intends to follow all of the bloc’s laws governing illegal and harmful speech.
Musk’s exact plans for Twitter remain to be seen. While the billionaire styles himself a “free speech absolutist” and has criticized what he sees as Twitter’s excessive content rules, the fraught question of what is and isn’t allowed on the site remains unresolved.
He has said that before any drastic changes are approved, he will form a “content moderation council” that includes people with “very different views” to determine Twitter’s new speech limits, or lack of protections. . Musk has this panel posted on Twitterwill weigh whether users who have been kicked out of Twitter should be reinstated.
Meanwhile, researchers have also noticed an increase in hate speech on Twitter since Musk took the reins.
According to the Network Infection Research Institute, the use of the n-word increased 500% after Musk’s buyout. The researchers also noted that posts on extremist forums like 4chan are encouraging people to “test the limits” of Twitter’s tolerance for hate speech by posting derogatory comments and seeing what happens.
Musk himself has already fueled a baseless conspiracy from his Twitter account to his more than 112 million followers with a tweet about the violent attack on the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
In a since-deleted tweet on Sunday, Musk wrote, “There’s a small chance there’s more to this story than meets the eye,” linking to an article from the Santa Monica Observer, a fringe website that regularly spread towards -wing conspiracy theories.
While the new European speech rules target systemic risks to people, not problems with individual posts, Vestager said Monday that Musk needs to figure out how Twitter can reduce the amount of harmful content the platform is exposing people to. If it fails to do that, she said, she believes people will leave Twitter for a better alternative.
“I take it for granted that if Twitter isn’t a good place to be, there will be another place,” Vestager said.
