When Elon Musk bought the social media platform “Twitter”, he immediately announced that there would be no room for any censorship. In order not to be unfounded, one of his first steps was to unblock the account of former US President Donald Trump, which stopped working after accusations of spreading fake news.
Elon Musk is in trouble. He went to war with the European Commission
Under Elon Musk, his social media has undergone a metamorphosis, not only changing its name to “X” but also introducing contextual information under posts, thanks to which Internet users can inform themselves which posts contain lies. A new service has also appeared, consisting of purchasing so-called verified accounts, which are supposed to suggest that the owner of such a profile is a credible person. And among other things European officials did not like this provision.
On Friday The European Commission has accused Musk and his platform of violating the Digital Services Act (DSA) and brought three charges against him. Among other things, he was accused of the fact that the status of “verified” accounts “negatively affects users’ ability to make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of accounts and content.” The EC believes that Musk’s “X” also violates EU rules on advertising transparency and access to data. The billionaire’s response did not take long.
Elon Musk: Europe wanted to introduce censorship
Elon Musk did not mince his words and revealed that before the European Commission accused “X” of using practices inconsistent with EU law, Brussels had offer him a secret contract. It was up to her to decide whether the social platform would get into trouble.
“The European Commission proposed an illegal, secret agreement to “X”: if we they silently censored statementswithout telling anyone about it, they wouldn’t punish us,” Elon Musk said.
The billionaire left no doubt, however, as to how he would react to such a proposal. He simply did not agree to introduce censorship through the back door, but as he himself informed, other social media platforms were to give in and agree to the EU proposal.
The accusations against “X” could have serious consequences for the company. Under EU law, if the proceedings were to prove that Musk’s company had broken EU law, it could face a fine of up to 6% of its total global annual turnover.
