The European Commission has issued a strong warning to the owner of X, Elon Musk, over what it termed illegal content and disinformation being spread on the platform in relation to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
Musk has been given 24 hours to respond by complying with the European regulations around illegal content or face sanction, which could result in fines worth 6% of the company’s annual revenue. In a letter posted on X, European commissioner for the internal market, Thierry Breton, there are indications that groups are spreading misinformation and “violent and terrorist” content on X, and urged the billionaire to respond within a 24-hour period.
The letter comes after numerous researchers, news organizations and other groups have documented a rise of misleading, false, and questionable content on X, creating confusion about the current conflict. Specifically, Cyabra, an Israeli analysis firm that has tracked bot accounts on Twitter/X, historically found a huge amount of fake accounts spreading pro-Hamas propaganda on the platform.
The letter to Musk
In the letter addressed to Elon Musk and shared on X, Bretton wrote:
“Dear Mr Musk,
- “Following the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas against Israel, we have indications that your platform is being used to disseminate illegal content and disinformation in the EU. Let me remind you that the Digital Services Act sets very precise obligations regarding content moderation.
- “First, you need to be very transparent and clear on what content is permitted under your terms and consistently and diligently enforce your own policies. This is particularly relevant when it comes to violent and terrorist content that appears to circulate on your platform. Your latest changes in public interest policies that occurred overnight left many European users
- “Second, when you receive notices of illegal content in the EU, you must be timely, diligent, and objective in taking action and removing the relevant content when warranted. We have, from qualified sources, reports about potentially illegal content circulating on your service despite flags from relevant authorities.
- “Third, you need to have in place proportionate and effective mitigation measures to tackle the risks to public security and civic discourse stemming from disinformation. Public media and civil society organizations widely report instances of fake and manipulated images and facts circulating on your platform in the EU, such as repurposed old images of unrelated armed conflicts or military footage that actually originated from video games. This appears to be manifestly false or misleading information. I therefore invite you to urgently ensure that your systems are effective, and report on the crisis measures taken to my team.
- “Given the urgency, I also expect you to be in contact with the relevant law enforcement authorities and Europol, and ensure that you respond promptly to their requests. Moreover, on a number of other issues of DSA compliance that deserve immediate attention, my team will follow up shortly with a specific request.
- “I urge you to ensure a prompt, accurate, and complete response to this request within the next 24 hours. We will include your answer in our assessment file on your compliance with the I remind you that following the opening of a potential investigation and a finding of non-compliance, penalties can be imposed.
Earlier concerns
In late September, the EU had also accused X of being used by pro-Russian forces to push misinformation and disinformation about the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. The EU said these actors were more in number on X compared with other social networking platforms such as TikTok, and Facebook, among others.
The company has, however, debunked the claim saying the EU’s position is not a reflection of its data. X said it has also been addressing misinformation on its platform through its community notes feature.
