The European Union warned Twitter that it must “significantly increase” its efforts to comply with its new legislation aimed at preventing disinformation and online abuse, else it may face substantial fines or ban as the “last resort” regulatory option. Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, was reportedly told he had “huge work ahead” to comply with the EU’s Digital Services Act, which requires tech companies to tackle problems such as hate speech online and disinformation.
The European Union’s commissioner for the internal market, Thierry Breton, told the Tesla CEO that Twitter will have to significantly increase efforts to “pass the grade”, Financial Times reported.
“I welcome Elon Musk’s statements of intent to get Twitter 2.0 ready for the DSA,” said Breton. “I am pleased to hear that he has read it carefully and considers it as a sensible approach to implement on a worldwide basis. But let’s also be clear that there is still huge work ahead, as Twitter will have to implement transparent user policies, significantly reinforce content moderation and protect freedom of speech.”
About EU’s Digital Services Act
The Digital Services Act (DSA) regulates the obligations of digital services that act as intermediaries in their role of connecting consumers with goods, services, and content across all European Union member nations. This includes e-commerce, social media platforms amongst others.
It aims to give better protection to users and to fundamental rights online. It also aims to “establish a powerful transparency and accountability framework for online platforms and provide a single, uniform framework across the EU.”
Punishments for breaches of the act include fines of up to 6 per cent of global turnover or a temporary suspension of the service if refusal to comply endangers people’s life and safety.
Suspension is described by the EU as a “last resort”.
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