DLNews Technology:
The Twitter chaos just never ends.
On Wednesday, the European Union gave the platform's new boss, Elon Musk (51), a tough ultimatum: Either Musk implements EU law by next year, or Twitter will be banned from Europe!
The EU Digital Commissioner Thierry Breton (67) named Musk the main demands of the Union in a video conference, as the "Financial Times" reports:
Frenchman Thierry Breton had a serious talk with Elon Musk on Wednesday.
Twitter can't just randomly bring back users who have been banned from the platform. Instead, there must be clear criteria. This should primarily mean US President Donald Trump (76), whose account Musk unlocked again after a user survey.
Moderators must "aggressively" track fake news.
Musk is said to be ordering an investigation and revealing information about how many active and banned users Twitter has.
Otherwise, the platform would violate the “Digital Services Act.” With the regulation that has only been in force since October, the EU wants to control social media more closely. One of the biggest changes: Big platforms like Twitter and Facebook have to devise plans to prevent the spread of disinformation and hate speech.
For the US presidential election in November 2020, Facebook knew that conspiracy theorists were deliberately spreading the claim that the election was rigged. But according to the New York Times, the top floor simply ignored the problem.
To prevent this from happening again, the EU requires that the platforms hire enough moderators to check users' posts. Especially on Twitter – where Musk fired half of the employees – EU officials are concerned that this will not work.
Means: The EU is thwarting Musk's Twitter plans! He wanted the platform to become a place of freedom of expression. In addition, posts with inflammatory content should no longer be deleted, only hidden.
The Twitter boss himself is said to have sheepishly said in the plain text conversation with the French Thierry Breton that the "law on digital services" is very reasonable.
Musk wants to 'go to war with Apple.
Apple is also said to want to put Elon Musk in his place. The company "threatened to ban Twitter from its App Store, but won't tell us why," Musk said on Monday.
The Twitter boss also accuses Apple of no longer advertising on its platform. "Do you hate freedom of speech in America? What's going on, Tim Cook?” he asked the Apple boss in a tweet.
The tech group has not yet commented on the allegations but insists that apps must delete hate speech and call for violence if they want to be offered in the store. That's why the Parler platform was banned in the past. There, Trump supporters had arranged to storm the Capitol without a moderator deleting the posts.
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