According to a recent tweet by Vera Jourova, Vice-President for Values and Transparency at the EU, the EU has issued a warning to Elon Musk’s Twitter over the spread of disinformation and promotion of the Kremlin agenda. Jourova expressed her concern that Twitter’s policies have made the digital information space unsafe and susceptible to malicious influence from authoritarian governments.
Under the new Digital Services Act (DSA), Twitter has been confirmed as one of 19 major tech platforms subject to centralised oversight by the EU. Jourova cited an AP report by non-profit organisation Reset, which found that recent policy changes at Twitter have amplified state-backed disinformation from authoritarian governments in Russia, China, and Iran.
To me this is a signal that #Twitter is falling short of its commitments to the anti-disinformation Code.
This is a paramount test to show they are serious about respecting the Code and ultimately compliance with the #DigitalServicesAct. (2/2)
— Věra Jourová (@VeraJourova) April 26, 2023
Jourova believes that this is a sign that Twitter is not committed to the anti-disinformation code and is falling short of its obligations under the DSA. The DSA requires social media platforms to take steps to mitigate systemic risks such as disinformation. Failure to comply can result in penalties of up to 6 per cent of the platform’s global annual turnover.
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The EU DSA calls for social media platforms to maintain independent auditing, share data with relevant authorities, and adopt a code of conduct by August 2023. It is essential for Twitter and other social media platforms to take these obligations seriously and work towards creating a safer digital information space.
Meanwhile, Twitter has said that India topped the list of countries requesting for removal of content. The other countries top requesting countries included South Korea, Japan and Turkey.
“As we review our approach to transparency reporting in light of innovations in content moderation and changes in the regulatory landscape, we believe it’s important to share data from H1 2022 on our health and safety efforts. We won’t be publishing a formal transparency report for this period (January 1 – June 30, 2022) in our previous format,” the company wrote in a blog post.
“Over the reporting period, Twitter required users to remove 6,586,109 pieces of content that violated the Twitter Rules, an increase of 29% from H2 2021. We took enforcement action on 5,096,272 accounts during this period (a 20% increase), and 1,618,855 accounts were suspended for violating the Twitter Rules (a 28% increase),” Twitter added.
