European Commission asks Musk to increase efforts against disinformation on Twitter

The European Commission asked this Wednesday the new owner of Twitter Elon Musk “significantly increase its efforts” to comply with European Union regulations, which include fight misinformation.

“Let’s be clear: there is still a lot of work to be done” and Twitter will have to “considerably strengthen the content moderationprotect the freedom of expression and to attack disinformation with determination,” warned the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, the Frenchman Thierry Breton.

Breton had a telephone conversation with Musk a day after the also Tesla leader announced the end of the policy against misinformation regarding the covid on the social network.

During the pandemic, Twitter dedicated itself to labeling misleading COVID-19 tweets and kicking out users who persisted in spreading misinformation.

The European commissioner in charge of numerical affairs recalled that Musk promised in May to respect the new European legislation.

Digital platforms such as Facebook, Amazon or Twitter must apply “by summer 2023” the new EU legislationwhich entered into force in November.

The law focuses on aspects such as the defense of human rights, freedom, democracy, equality and the rule of law, with the intention of being a tool to put an end to disinformation.

To this end, it contemplates mechanisms for the immediate removal of illegal content and obliges digital platforms to suspend users who “frequently” violate the regulations.

Musk and Breton “agreed that the Commission services will carry out a stress test at the Twitter headquarters in early 2023, which will allow Twitter to assess its compliance even before the legal deadlines,” the Frenchman detailed.

In a tweet posted on Wednesday, Breton sent a link to a reminder of the European rules posted on his account on Mastodon, a social network rival to Twitter.

Musk also reinstated a series of accounts on the social network that had previously been banned for violating its content rules, such as that of the former president. Donald Trump.