After his X platform was slammed for carrying the highest ratio of disinformation posts of the world‘s biggest social media firms, Elon Musk has been warned by the European Union to comply with its fresh laws on fake news and Russian propaganda.
Elon Musk has been warned by the European Union to comply with its fresh laws on fake news – after his X platform was slammed for carrying the highest ratio of disinformation posts of the world‘s biggest social media firms.
A report found Facebook was the second worst offender, in the first ever investigation recording posts that will be deemed illegal across the EU under the Digital Services Act (DSA), which came into force in August.
Unlike X, Facebook and tech giants including Google, TikTok and Microsoft have signed up to the code of practice the EU drew up to ensure they could get ready in time to operate within the confines of the new laws.
X was known as Twitter when it left the code of practice, but it is obliged under the new law to comply with the rules or face a ban across the EU.
European commissioner Věra Jourová, who is responsible for the implementation of the new anti-disinformation code, said: “Mr Musk knows he is not off the hook by leaving the code of practice.
“There are obligations under the hard law. So my message for Twitter/X is you have to comply. We will be watching what you do.
“X, formerly Twitter… is the platform with the largest ratio of mis/disinformation followed by Facebook.”
She added that on X “disinformation actors were found to have significantly more followers than their non-disinformation counterparts and tend to have joined the platform more recently than non-disinformation users”.
Ms Jourová said the report was evidence Russia was engaged in a “war of ideas” and that Kremlin disinformation was still widespread across the world’s largest social media sites.
She damned Kremlin propaganda as “a multimillion-euro weapon of mass manipulation aimed both internally at the Russians as well as Europeans and the rest of the world” – and said: “We must address this. The very large platforms must address this risk.”
The EU’s 200-page report on social media fake news and false propaganda, including for Russia, is an account of the work the large platforms have done in the first six months of 2023 to prepare for compliance with the new law.
Ms Jourová added: “The Russian state has engaged in the war of ideas to pollute our information space with half truth and lies to create a false image that democracy is no better than autocracy.”
LinkedIn’s owner Microsoft stopped 6.7 million fake accounts being created and removed 24,000 pieces of fake content
YouTube, owned by Google, told the EU it had removed more than “400 channels involved in coordinated influence operations linked to the Russian-state sponsored Internet Research Agency”.
Tiktok removed almost 6 million fake accounts and 410 unverifiable adverts.
Google removed advertising from almost 300 sites linked to “state-funded propaganda sites” and rejected more than 140,000 political advertisers for “failing identity verification processes”.
Meta has expanded its fact-checking to 26 partners covering 22 languages in the EU, and now also includes Czech and Slovak.
Elon Musk warned by EU to comply fake news laws amid disinformation scandal
