EU looking into X, a.k.a. Twitter, for “terrorist content”

If Elon Musk’s platform disregarded regional “disinformation” laws, the bloc had previously threatened to impose sanctions.

The spread of hate speech, misinformation, and other types of “illegal content” on the website X (previously Twitter) has prompted the EU to open an investigation into it. Now, the dominant social media platform must demonstrate that it complies with EU legislation.

On Thursday, the European Commission made the announcement, claiming that it had issued X a “formal request for information” in accordance with the EU’s comprehensive internet law, the Digital Services Act (DSA).

The organisation stated that the request was made in response to “indications received by the Commission services of the alleged spreading of illegal content and disinformation, in particular the spreading of terrorist and violent content and hate speech.”

Thierry Breton, the EU’s internal market commissioner, earlier claimed that the bloc had witnessed an increase in “disinformation” following the “terrorist attacks by Hamas against Israel” last weekend, despite the fact that the statement made no reference of the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict.

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The Israeli military responded with days of punitive bombings after the Palestinian group launched a significant attack on Saturday, sending waves of fighters and rockets into Israel.

Breton demanded a written answer from X owner Elon Musk in a letter he sent earlier this week, warning that the site would be penalised if it violates the DSA.

In an open letter to the EU on Thursday, X CEO Linda Yaccarino defended the site’s policy, stating that the platform had “redistributed resources” and “refocused teams” to handle content about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Since last Saturday, she claimed, tens of thousands of posts and hundreds of accounts purportedly connected to terrorism or extremism had been deleted.

If proven to be in violation of EU regulations, websites and search engines may be subject to fines of up to 6% of their annual global turnover. Although the rule won’t be fully implemented until the beginning of 2024, websites classified as “very large online platforms” — or those with more than 45 million monthly users, like X — are expected to comply with the regulations as of August.

The group also wrote a second “urgent” letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, giving him 24 hours to explain how his platforms were dealing with the propagation of misinformation and “illegal content” about the Israel-Hamas conflict.