Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter has been one of the biggest news in the tech industry this week. The tech billionaire’s $44 billion acquisition of the micro-blogging platform came after weeks of pursuit by the Tesla CEO to increase his stake in his favourite social media platform. However, the acquisition, as expected, has brought both Twitter and Elon Musk under massive scrutiny from regulators across the world. The European Union has now issued a warning to Musk over his takeover of Twitter.
One of EU’s top lawmaker has issued the warning over Musk‘s idea of “free speech" on Twitter. Musk has earlier called himself a “free speech absolutist" and this has left many people wondering if the SpaceX founder will relax the moderation on Twitter. EU commissioner for internal market Theirry Breton has said that getting too lax on content moderation may get Twitter banned in the European Union, a report in The Financial Times quoted Breton as saying. Breton told the daily that he wanted to give Musk a ‘reality check’ on his plans for relaxing the content moderation.
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“We welcome everyone. We are open but on our conditions. At least we know what to tell him: ‘Elon, there are rules. You are welcome but these are our rules. It’s not your rules which will apply here," Breton told FT. Breton’s comments come soon after the European Commission passed the new Digital Services Act that puts more responsibility on tech giants over the content shared on their platforms.
Breton said that Twitter’s board will have to meet Europe’s laws on issues relating to content moderation, transparency, and hate speech. He said that if Twitter fails to comply with the rules, the EU could fine the company 6 percent of its annual revenue, and could even ban the micro-blogging platform from functioning in Europe. “Be it cars or social media, any company operating in Europe needs to comply with our rules – regardless of their shareholding," Breton was quoted as saying. He further said that Musk is familiar with the European rules on automotive because of Tesla’s operations, and said that he “will quickly adapt to the Digital Services Act."
The new rules under the Digital Services Act include removing illegal content more quickly, and explaining to users and researchers how their algorithms work, further taking stricter action on the spread of misinformation. Companies could face fines of up to 6 percent of their total annual turnover for not complying with the new laws. “The DSA will upgrade the ground-rules for all online services in the EU," the European Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen was quoted as saying in a statement.
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