New twist in the management of Elon Musk’s social network: Twitter has decided to leave the “code of good practice” against online disinformation of the European Union (EU). The news was announced – on Twitter obviously – by Thierry Breton, Friday, May 26.
This departure is not a surprise for the teams of the European commissioner: since the takeover of the social network in October 2022, the billionaire owner has relaxed the moderation of problematic content, and seems to have amplified the voice of notorious propagators of disinformation on the platform. .
By signing this code a few years ago, the social network had promised to follow around forty commitments, aimed in particular at better cooperating with fact-checkers and depriving sites disseminating false information of publicity. Launched in 2018, it brings together around thirty signatories: there are giants such as Meta, Google, Twitter, Microsoft, TikTok, but also smaller platforms, as well as advertising professionals, fact-checkers and NGOs. Does Twitter’s withdrawal risk opening the door to ever more misinformation on the platform?
The DSA takes over from August
To justify this decision, the leaders of the blue bird social network explained that they had chosen to rely on their own community of Internet users to self-regulate, rather than fact-checkers, according to a newspaper source The world.
But according to Thierry Breton, this exit from the European code of good practices will not allow Twitter to completely free itself from the rules of the continent. “You can run but you can’t hide, he warned. Beyond the voluntary commitments, the fight against misinformation will be a legal obligation under the Digital Services Act (DSA) from the August 25.”
“Our teams will be ready to enforce the law,” warned the European commissioner. The DSA effectively provides for fines of up to 6% of the platforms’ turnover to punish those who do not make the necessary efforts to reduce the risks of misinformation, and thus violate its rules on illegal content. This European law could go so far as to banish a platform from the territory in the event of repeated infringements.