11/8/2023 0 Comments Integrity plus![]() ![]() So it has not blocked EU users’ ability to report election integrity concerns entirely. In further worrying signals for election security at Twitter, The Information reported earlier this week that Musk had cut half the remaining members of the election integrity team - flying in the face of claims by the company, and recently repeated by its CEO Linda Yaccarino, that it’s expanding efforts to tackle threats to elections.Īlso this week it emerged the platform has quietly removed a legacy option to report misleading information about politics - although, as we noted in our coverage, X users in the EU can still find an option to report “negative effects on civic discourse or elections” (under a region-specific option to “report EU illegal content”). And not just financial as well as big fines, the DSA empowers the Commission to block services that repeatedly fail to comply with the rulebook - so there is the additional possibility, if X entrenches itself on a reckless trajectory and is unable to demonstrate it’s tackling safety issues, that it could ultimately lose access to the EU market. Neglecting the societal threats posed by disinformation thus risks major sanction in the EU. The bloc has also made it clear that its regulators will treat adherence with the (non-legally binding) Disinformation Code as a signal it factors in when assessing whether larger platforms are in compliance with the (legally binding) DSA. And so alright, I was I was wrong on that point as well.”īack in April, just prior to Musk pulling X out of the Code, the EU designated the platform a so-called VLOP (very large online platform) under the DSA - which means it has a legal requirement to tackle systemic threats such as disinformation. “And just today, Commissioner Jourova has said that Twitter are tempting fate - that they are an easy target for enforcement. “They’re the only large platform to do so,” he noted. ![]() Remembering what he was thinking when he left Twitter last year, a short time after Elon Musk’s acquisition ushered in a new era of platform drama, Roth said he had believed that commercial and regulatory factors would act as a constraint on what the new owner might do as regards damage to trust and safety.īut he said his assumptions have turned out to be wrong - citing the exodus of advertisers Musk has presided over and the decision to pull the platform out of the EU’s disinformation Code. “The question is how much damage happens between now and then to individual people who work at companies - like me - to the quality of the conversation on Twitter, to the platform itself? I think there’s a lot that can be done before regulation catches up with reality and that’s what really worries me.” X marks the odd one out And so if I had to make a prediction, it would be that it won’t be right now - it might not even be a year from now - but there will be consequences. “If the European Union has proven anything, it’s that they are willing and able to regulate large companies and push them to abide by the laws of the European Union. And so I think we’re going to see lagging effects here. “Regulatory time moves a lot slower than internet time. Speaking during an on-stage interview at the Code Conference this week, Yoel Roth pointed to X’s decision back in May to withdraw from the EU’s Code of Practice on Disinformation, as well as citing recent remarks by commissioner Vera Jourova which singled out the platform as the worst for the spread of disinformation - predicting a clash with the bloc’s regulators is now “inevitable”. The former head of trust and safety at Twitter has warned the platform now known as X is charting a collision course with the European Union’s rebooted digital rulebook, the Digital Services Act (DSA) - which carries penalties of up to 6% of global annual turnover for confirmed breaches of the online governance regime.
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