The EU has threatened to shut down Elon Musk’s Twitter unless the billionaire follows its stringent guidelines for content moderation, igniting a legal war over the survival of the social network.
Strict Rules Imposed
According to persons with knowledge of the event, Thierry Breton, the EU commissioner in charge of carrying out the bloc’s digital regulations, issued the threat during a video chat with Musk on Wednesday.
Breton gave Musk a number of requirements to follow, including giving up the practice of restoring banned users in an “arbitrary” manner, combating misinformation “aggressively,” and agreeing to a comprehensive independent audit of the platform by the following year.
Violations To Be Costly
Musk was informed that Twitter risked breaking the EU’s new Digital Services Act, a historic law that establishes the global standard for how Big Tech must regulate content on the internet.
Breton reaffirmed that under the law, Twitter might be subject to a ban across all of Europe or fines of up to 6% of its worldwide revenue.
Musk’s Dire Attempts In Vain
According to individuals informed on the conversation, the new owner of Twitter vehemently expressed his opinion that the DSA was quite rational, and that he had read the legislation and believed it should be implemented globally.
However, Musk, a self-described “free speech absolutist,” has said that he would permit all communication on the platform as long as it was legal, although “negative/hate speech” will be “deboosted,” and the EU’s planned rules seemed to be a direct response to this.
- Elon Musk
