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The European Commission has given a serious warning to Elon Musk, the owner of X, regarding content on the platform related to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war that has been labeled as illegal and disinformation.
Elon Musk must respond within 24 hours by complying with European regulations surrounding illegal content, or he could face sanctions, potentially leading to fines amounting to 6% of X's yearly revenue.
Thierry Breton, the European commissioner for the internal market, conveyed these concerns in a letter posted on X. Breton pointed out that there are signs of groups spreading misinformation and what he referred to as "violent and terrorist" content on X, urging Musk to address the issue within the 24-hour timeframe.
This action by the European Commission comes after numerous researchers, news organizations, and other groups raised concerns about the increasing amount of misleading, false, and questionable content on X, causing confusion about the ongoing conflict.
Specifically, Cyabra, an Israeli analysis firm, has been tracking bot accounts on Twitter/X and discovered a significant number of fake accounts disseminating pro-Hamas propaganda on the platform.
The Letter to Musk
In the letter addressed to Elon Musk and shared on X, Breton 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 confused.
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 reports from qualified sources 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 several 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 Digital Services Act. 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 accused X of being used by pro-Russian forces to spread misinformation and disinformation about the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. The EU claimed that these actors were more numerous on X compared to other social networking platforms like TikTok and Facebook, among others.
However, X has refuted these claims, stating that the EU's position does not align with their data. X has also been actively addressing misinformation on its platform through its community notes feature.