2023-10-19 10:22:20
Couple Klara Durand
Published 1 hour ago, Updated 1 hour ago
Elon Musk GONZALO FUENTES / REUTERS
Rather than complying with European Union requirements in terms of content moderation, the billionaire might make it impossible to use X on European soil.
Rather than complying with European legislation on digital services (Digital Services Act), why not simply shut down X (formerly Twitter) in Europe? According to the American economic media Business Insider, this is a solution that Elon Musk would consider. According to an internal source interviewed by the American media, the boss of X says he is frustrated at having to comply with the DSA. The text requires platforms like its own to implement effective content moderation and remove false information. However, since October 8, violent and sometimes misleading images of the conflict in Israel have been circulating en masse on the social network.
The question of the effectiveness of moderation on the part of On October 11, the latter sent a letter to the X teams to remind them of their obligations towards the new European law. For his part, Elon Musk has made several tweets in which he claims not to know what Thierry Breton is talking regarding. Subsequently, the European Commission opened a formal investigation. If the social network does not comply with the DSA, it might issue a fine equivalent to 6% of the company’s turnover.
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In response, it therefore appears that Elon Musk might remove access to X in Europe. This is the option that Mark Zuckerberg already chose a few months ago for his new social network, Threads. Launched this summer, the billionaire explained that he wanted “take the time to study the obligations surrounding the DSA» before opening access to its application to European Internet users. Users can view Threads posts from its website, but cannot post or download the mobile app.
Europeans are deserting
Elon Musk’s decision might also be motivated by the absence of human resources to comply with European legislation. Since its $44 billion takeover of Twitter in October 2022, most of the members dedicated to moderation policies have been fired. And almost all of the company’s dozens of international offices have been closed in several European countries but also in Australia, Africa, India and South Korea. Already at the time of the takeover, Elon Musk proposed that the platform be operated only in countries where it is very popular, namely the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan.
If European Internet users today represent 9% of Twitter’s 400 million monthly active users, many of them are deserting the platform. According to Apptopia data relayed by Business Insider, daily use of X by European users has fallen between 10% and 40% depending on the country over the last three months. Some are turning to alternatives like BlueSky, which gained 500,000 users in a month.
And this disenchantment with X might accelerate further. Elon Musk continues his overhaul of the social network and continues to make decisions that cause controversy. Currently, the boss of Tesla is trying, in the Philippines and New Zealand, a subscription of one dollar per year for new registrants on X. The stated objective is to fight once morest fake accounts present on the platform. An experiment which provokes the ire of many Internet users, with the prospect that this novelty will then be generalized to all users of the social network.
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