TECH NEWS – Elon Musk, the owner of the X social media platform, is considering withdrawing the service formerly known as Twitter from Europe in response to the new internet platform regulation introduced in the region – reported on Wednesday (October 18) Insider news portal.

 

The billionaire discussed removing the app’s availability in the region or preventing users in the European Union from accessing it, a person familiar with the company told the publication.

The European Union passed the Digital Services Act (DSA) in August, which sets out rules to prevent the spread of harmful content, ban or restrict certain user-targeting practices, and share certain internal data with regulators and related researchers, among other things. .

If X does not comply with the rules, the EU can impose tough sanctions: up to 6% of the company’s global annual turnover and exclusion from the EU’s single market.

X did not immediately respond to inquiries from Reuters.

In the person of industrial commissioner Thierry Breton, a dispute arose between the EU Commission and Musk most recently over the exchange of messages on the X platform following Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7.

EU’s Breton called on Musk to act against disinformation spreading on X after the Hamas attack.
EU Industry Commissioner Thierry Breton called on Elon Musk on Tuesday (10 October) to address disinformation spreading on his messaging platform X since the surprise attack on Israel by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in order to comply with new EU online content rules.

In particular, Breton emphasized X’s obligations under the Digital Services Act (DSA), an EU regulation for moderating illegal online content. These include timely response to disinformation content flagged to the platform and effective mitigation measures.

Given the urgency of the matter regarding the Hamas-Israel conflict, Breton wrote that he expects Musk to “contact the appropriate law enforcement authorities and Europol.”

Musk responded to Breton, asking him to “list the violations you mentioned on X so the public can see them,” to which Breton replied, without elaborating, that Musk “is well-known to users — and the authorities’ reports on false content and the glorification of false content”.

In addition, Věra Jourová, Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for values and transparency, said on September 26, when presenting the half-yearly report on disinformation, that among the largest online platforms in the EU, X “is the platform with the highest share of misinformation/disinformation posts”.

Adding to the animosity, Musk shared a video on September 29 that clearly supported claims by Germany’s far-right and anti-migrant AfD party that humanitarian NGOs rescuing migrants from the sea are responsible for “European suicide.”

A few hours after the publication of the article, Elon Musk called the material published by the Insider news site “completely false”.

Source: Insider