Europe gives Elon Musk 24 hours to respond about Israel-Hamas war misinformation and violence on X
cnbc.com
Europe gives Elon Musk 24 hours to respond about Israel-Hamas war misinformation and violence on X::Thierry Breton, the European commissioner for the internal market, warns Elon Musk about disinformation on X related to the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Time to ban Twitter and call it a day.
I deleted my Twitter at the beginning of this year. Never used it much, just followed a lot of metal bands on it. I don't regret it for a single second. Everyday since, it's just been one giant non-stop shit show. It's sad to see so many still use it, but for my own good conscience, I can't support that platform in any way. I avoid it like the plague.
I've only used it like 5 times to contact airlines. Their social media team seems better staffed and more helpful than the hotline. Tried using it in the early days, but the 160 char limit was a total turnoff for me. Felt like back in the 90's with a 160 char limit imposed on text messages, and everybody using cryptic abbreviations. That almost triggered some high school PTSD. And when they changed that I was already too far immersed in other channels to get my updates to really bother trying again.
Musk is about to learn why getting rid of the content moderation department wasn't very cost-saving to the operation of his platform.
Aren't you an optimist.
Hah, I think you have a VERY valid point. Musk truly, and I mean TRULY DOESNT CARE WHAT ANYONE THINKS.
he cares what people think - he wants people to pay attention to him.
I'm sure he'll learn...the wrong lesson
Musk has made it clear that this was never about money. Er, at least not about Xitter making money.
"Thierry Breton, the European commissioner for the internal market, said in a letter addressed to Musk on Tuesday that his office has “indications” that groups are spreading misinformation and “violent and terrorist” content on X, and urged the billionaire to respond within a 24-hour period."
Sounds like it's just a strongly worded letter.
A bit below that it says that they're also threatening fines of 6% of annual revenue.
Are they gonna give Twitter more money then? /s
You're thinking of profit, not revenue
Are we sure
Twitter𝕏's revenue is still in the positive? I don't think direct injections of capital count as revenue.Revenue is money in before costs, so yes their revenue is still positive given they are actually charging some people positive amounts. Their earnings are quite likely negative.
$2bn in 2022 for non-US. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitter-statistics/
Assume 80% of that is Europe, and a 25% drop in revenue since X, is $1.2bn, then 6% is $72m. This would likely be a daily fine of about $197K per day USD, minus shifty billionaire revenue reporting.
EU revenue fines are generally calculated by global revenue cause companies always try to shift the money to other countries.
What's the basis for assuming a 25%? Instead of, let's say, a 90%?
Hadn't read the actual letter. It would be interesting to know what the specific request they have is.
Ah so that's why he's tanking it
You have to have revenue in order to be fined 6% of it.
6% of zero is zero.
Am I missing something? I said revenue not profit. Or is the joke that Twitter isn't making any money anymore?
I think it hardly ever was profitable and even revenue should be quite dropping since it became X
6% of their revenue is probably still billions of dollars. Might even amount to the biggest fine ever.
$2bn in 2022 for non-US. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitter-statistics/
Assume 80% of that is Europe, and a 25% drop in revenue since X, is $1.2bn, then 6% is $72m. This would likely be a daily fine of about $197K per day USD, minus shifty billionaire revenue reporting.
Wow, that's MUCH less revenue than you'd expect from a worldwide behemoth like the shithole formerly known as Twitter!
And there you have the reason they sued to force Musk to stick to his word of buying it rather than let him off the hook and look for someone else dumb enough to pay that much for it.
I sometimes feel like the only person that remembers that DSA exists. It went into effect in August.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Services_Act
Doesn't that only come into effect at the beginning of 2024?
If I understand correctly it's a gradual rollout.
He doesn't have time for that, after all he's the busiest man on the planet and earns his billions every day.
Which is why his Diablo 4 Druid is level 100. Lol.
If your going to bash him, don't do it for him playing computer games.
....there are plenty of proper reasons!
When someone claims they are so work-focused that they sleep in the office and expect others to follow suit, finding out that they have a high level character in a game that's only a few months old is worth bashing them over.
It's not that Elon plays games, it's that he pretends he's too busy to do so and expects his employees to be too busy to do so.
That's not the point. The point is that oligarchs always go on about how hard they work, which makes them somehow deserve all the wealth they've swindled us out of. But if you work so hard, you won't have time to sink endless hours into a game.
Bashing him for his choice of game is fair play.
He's still playing that shitty game?
I enjoy Diablo IV and I think that's okay. It's a wonderful dopamine generator and a good podcast companion.
The fact that it's online-only should be reason enough for no one to buy it and continue enabling this anti-consumer behavior. But whatever, no one cares I guess.
The fact that it's online-only may be reason enough for you not to buy it. You don't get to dictate what the rest of us do.
I'm not sure I understand why you consider online-only "anti-consumer." It's just the direction this series has taken. We don't call any other requirements "anti-consumer." I don't have a graphics card on my PC good enough to support VR, does that mean Half Life Alyx is "anti-consumer" for being VR only?
At the time I understood the frustration the community expressed with Diablo III, but we're well past that now. And network connections are far better now than they were then.
Does it limit Blizzard's audience? Sure. Does it alienate some people who played Diablo II? Sure. But to Blizzard, the benefits in terms of design freedom, baked-in multiplayer zones, and anti-cheating capabilities outweigh that loss.
No one is trying to dictate what you do. I'm making you aware that your choices impact everyone else and expressing my dismay that you and other purchasers don't seem concerned about the direction of this industry.
I mean it's very simple. It benefits the corporation. It has zero benefit to the consumer, and several drawbacks, including the inability to play anytime there's not an active internet connection (mobile), and the inability to play when the developer inevitably goes out of business or their servers go down, whether temporarily or permanently.
I don't know what this means. It's not "just a direction", it's an explicitly anti-consumer direction.
Uhhhh no? Why would it be?
None of these have anything to do with requiring a server ping for single player modes.
Why would he not pay somebody to play?
Why do you know what level he has in some game? Why are people so obsessed with Elon in general? Ignore that clown.
He's one of the wealthiest people in the world
So? Do you know the level of Gates in some game? Or any other absurdly rich person? This is only happening with Elon.
Little note: he doesn't earn billions every day
oh, so sorry
Boy I hope the EU does something besides sit around with its dick in their hands.
The second might be just talk but the first one is very much “something”.
Since Twitter lost $20 billion in value this year, he would argue that means the EU owes Twitter $1.2 billion.
Edit: Yes, revenue vs profit. I get it. It was a joke.
Revenue. Doesn't matter what they're worth.
Revenue, not profit.
In other words - Twitter would lose even more money. And they'd lose it to people that can take it straight from their bank accounts. 6% of it, to start with.
So $0.48 of every blue checkmark would go straight to the EU.
And, IIRC the penalty is based on last years or accounting periods data, i.e, from times where they still earned money.
Wouldn't surprise me if that was Elon's "strategy" here.
That’s pretty much the joke I was going for, but I guess I should’ve been more obvious……
What about the country where those megacorps are living?
Go EU, Go!
$2bn in 2022 for non-US. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitter-statistics/
Assume 80% of that is Europe, and a 25% drop in revenue since X, is $1.2bn, then 6% is $72m. This would likely be a daily fine of about $197K per day USD, minus shifty billionaire revenue reporting.
It's 6% of world-wide turnover, not EU revenue. The neat part about turnover is that you can't play shenanigans with accounting. It's very unlikely to be the full 6% though and they will want to keep some headroom for escalation and even more egregious cases.
But yes this is absolutely "drive a company bankrupt" kind of territory and that's precisely the intention. Either Twitter shapes up, leaves the EU market, or gets fined into non-existence.
I guess joke's on the EU....
Because they aren't making much money? Considering this isn't based on profit but revenue, that's a pretty significant fine
Any updates on the situation? The 24h period must be done by now.
I have the same question. I hope the reply is published.
I hope they have the PR for when he misses the deadline already written up so they can just hit "Publish" when he fails to respond.
The saudis might give him money to mitigate fines. I’m sure that’s not beyond him to continue with a misinformation campaign if the price is right.
Well, more money for the EU and less for the Saudis wouldn’t be a bad outcome either.
I'm having real hard time trying to understand what kind of "misinformation and violence" is spreading on twitter, that isn't on other social media platforms such as right here. I wonder what even counts as "misinformation" at this point, as you can make quite outrageous but factual claims about both sides (Israeli government and hamas)
This is the most confusing conflict I've ever paid any significant attention to, and it feels like the more I learn, the less I understand.
I would argue a major difference between misinformation on some place like Lemmy and misinformation on Twitter, is that Musk as owner of Twitter is amplifying this misinformation. Elon Musk frequently replies to people spreading misinfo and shouts out their accounts.
What if it was some other celebrity with similarly large following doing that on some other platform?
I don't quite buy that explanation. Basically the same thing is happening elsewhere too but instead of it being done by a single individual it's done by many. The end result is just the same.
I've been on several social median sites and ironically it seems reddit and X both have a lot of information.
Reddit had several western articles about Hamas beheading 40 babies. The upvotes and comments are extremely biased and genocidey.
The beheading 40 babies claim has be debunked but there's still no talk about it on reddit, they've just chewed that shit up and run with it.
X has a lot of not farms and Indians so its very muddy trying to distinguish what type of information you're getting.
They are both terrible, but the thing is that Israel has a positive connection to Western governments and the Palestinians don't. So when Hamas kills civilians it's jihad and terror and when Israel does it, it gets handwaved or even supported.
Our media is not unbiased, no matter how much they tell you and are trying to uphold the illusion of factual correctness. We simply live on the other side of the narrative and if that is challenged, it's called "misinformation". Anyone thinking there is a right and a wrong side here is either a moron or has a personal stake like family or friends in the region.
The conflict in that area will never end without secularism and the chance of that happening is zero. It's one cut of religious fanaticism versus another.
This comment is a good example of why your "Misinformation" policing is fascist authoritarianism.
Your debunked "misinformation" was just debunked again as the images of the dead babies have hit the internet. But according to you, the original claims should have been censored as misinformation.
I tried to trace the origins of the conflict yesterday, and I got to the Russian revolution with still no concrete answer. I figured out the reason for the Balfour Declaration and the reason why there was a Zionist movement for a Jewish state, but I have yet to figure out what factors caused the events leading to that.
We're talking stuff like footage for other wars, cgi, even stuff from video games
So kinda like... a Final Countdown?
Elon is okay with it since it suits him.
I like his new 'defiant teenager' style 😆
I will like him more when he, like some teenager, realizes there are consequences to his actions.
Oh no, no, don't get me wrong, please.
I do not like him. I just like the style how he gets depicted recently, with the stubble etc.
I'm glad that someone is fighting misinformation. What scares me, is if the right wing in the US starts trying to do the same thing. Can you imagine them cracking down on Facebook, X, etc for misinformation like the EU is doing? It would only be Biden conspiracies and pro Trump propaganda allowed. Good thing we aren't giving our government that power.
Absolutely. We should never give the government the right to censor the Internet.
Moms of Liberty enters the chat
He'll fuck this up. I look forward to reading the EU's chastising later today.
Let's go Lonnie (you stupid piece of shit), Let's go!
Or else what, exactly? Until someone actually holds his feet.to the fire, the idiocy will continue.
Ok, it's been 24 hours, anyone have an update?
You gimuyd are on some wikd shit im history
As much as I hate disinformation on the internet and witnessed what it can do to people. I am very cautious when governments place themselves as the arbiters of truth. we should fight for the freedom of speech even when it is contrary to our beliefs. disinformation should be fraught against with facts and transparency.
Good luck with that doesn't seem to be working.
I agree with you, but I'm curious to know your thoughts: What do you do when the 2-3% of people who are willing to take that fight head-on aren't nearly enough to combat the endless bots and astroturfers across social media? I don't count myself amongst those 2-3% by the way, I'm on Lemmy and not Reddit in part to avoid some of that. Engaging is far too much effort and I have my own problems to worry about.
It's about making choices really. you could either take everything and do your best to sieve through the huge amount of disinformation everywhere even if it takes too much time and even risks. or chose a "good-willing good-intending" governments and mass media apparatus to be your main source of information and final arbiter of truth.
In both choices you will encounter disinformation, bias, and propaganda, except in the last one you will only be presented with one version of the events, that's why I prefer to have access to all propaganda(s) to choose my poison.
The government has a process called the courts where they decide on what was the "truth" of the matter. Hell, they'll even restrict your speech during a trial, jurors included. The trick here is you give power to the people to decide, arguably this is playing out in our school systems as well over books.
Yes. Exactly. How refreshing to hear.
Look, idgaf about musk or anything he does but why is it on him to fix misinformation on x? Why is it the job of the platform owner? Id really like it if someone explained this to me.
The way I see it, content on these platforms is user generated, misinformed or not, propaganda of one side or the other... If someone decides to put up a plain old text document and let everyone modify it, should the owner of said document really be liable for what others put on it? What if the document has no owner and is hosted in a peer to peer fashion? Who do we give 24 hours to fix it then?
The EU decided that it rather doesn't have any platforms than some which allow hate/propaganda/childabuse. The intent is to fight the mentioned things and ideally remove them from society. By and large, this decision is a democratic one and fine.
Platforms may continue operation, if they promise to remove all stuff. Here there are two options, one stipulating that all content needs to be checked before its published. Thats the draconian approach. Currently its fine to only go after user reported stuff.
Now to your first question: They fon't gaf about musk and don't care if he removes the stuff. But if he choses not to, they will shutdown twitter for europeans. Thats why they adress him, because he as a major shareholder and CEO (is he?) calls the shots there.
The biggest question for me, is who determines what's misinformation? Honestly, it's determined by someone with a bias as to what is real information, and what is false. What if it was the Republicans in the US making that decision? It would completely change what's considered misinformation. This is where the dangers of censoring misinformation come in. It's all about who is making the decisions. Sure, you may agree with the people making the decisions now, but what about in 5, 10 years?
The beheaded babies thing is a good example. People called it misinformation for days, but today they were forced to release images of the dead babies because nobody believed multiple independent journalists from different countries.
it's really just more of a question of moderation of the platform and censorship of speech
24 hours for Elon Musk to replace the truth he's said with a lie which Europe would like to hear.
I hate this word disinformation so much. We cannot censor any information on the internet even if it's a total bulshit. I'm on Lemmy cause there is no censorship and everyone should think about that nowadays. Anything you post online can have legal consequences and that's complete bulshit squared. #freespeach
There absolutely is.
WHO THE FUCK IS OPPRESSING THE PEACHES!? 🍑
"Hi, my name is Sage and my pronouns are they/them. I'm 22. I don't have a job because jobs are a tool of the patriarchy. I spend my time overeating to suppress the feelings of emptiness cultivated by my hedonistic lifestyle. I like to re-use jokes from 2010 about free speech sounding like freezed peaches because I think it makes me sound funny. I don't know that it makes me sound like an idiot because I'm self-diagnosed as highly autistic."
There is a ton of censorship here, rightfully so. Lies must be stopped from spreading, they cause way too much damage. Most humans do not think critical enough to effectively filter out lies. This might be a inherent trait of humans. But even if we are critical enough, it is easy to drown out real information with a ton of misinformation.
The whole premise of stopping lies is flawed cause you never can stop them. The society would have to impose complete censorship of data which is firstly against all human rights and secondary everyone would have to state the unilateral truth which is utopian in it's nature. As long as there are different opinions and facts there are many shades of truth..
There aren't different facts, though. Thinking like this is part of the problem.
I disagree. Thinking like you is the problem. There is not and never can be one simple truth. If you see only one truth you are neglecting opinions, thoughts and facts of thousands more people.
Which facts are different for different people? Do you have an example?
Fact one:
Izrael is autonomous state formed by western countries after second world war to create a home country for all Jews around the world. Theirs truth is that they can keep and defend their boarders, believes and traditions as they need even if it means suppression of a minority for avoiding the ww2 crimes happening again.
Fact two :
Palestine is a region where people lived for thousands of years in peace with christians and jews and one day without asking, they are told that they are part of a newly formed state with different customs and believes. Theirs truth is that they want to sustain their tradition, autonomy and believes.
Two facts, two truths, both reasonable, both having meaning to people and they contradict each other. Point of view matters. I don't take part in this, I just used it as an example cause it's in news a lot now.
PS: I despise all atrocities which Hamas does in Izrael. Hamas does not talk for most of the Palestine people, but unfortunately it's a creation of lack of initiative of west and Izrael to solve this issue once and for all. It could have been avoided.
PPS: I'm done explaining and persuading. I don't have time for this.. If someone looks for it he will find it. Stubborn people cannot and don't want to be open minded. I wish you all good. Please, sometimes look at the world through the eyes of people you don't understand the most...
You're mixing up facts with ideological stances, but I don't think you're doing it on purpose. I think that you just don't understand what a fact is.
If you're trying to fight malaria and one person believes that malaria is caused by a protozoan and another person thinks it's caused by demons, you shouldn't give those points of view equal weight.
Censorship not from the government, though. So if someone's being a pedant, they might insist it's not "censorship" to tailor content for a platform or service.
It's still censorship, but sometimes censorship is necessary and warranted.
I agree, but the problem when it's from government is that government can define "atrocities we're doing" as "misinformation."
EU residents along with Canadians are the LAST people who should count on government continuing to be reasonable.
I agree, I'm just pointing out some obstinately adhere to saying censorship has to come from a government to be "censorship", otherwise it's just getting kicked off a platform for what ever reason.
It's relevant in some contexts since you can be silenced and the first amendment doesn't give a sh*t (as if it doesn't have its own exceptions anyways). Though I don't suppose truth in media is part of it. Otherwise the us government would already be clamping down on their own homegrown corp.
Who gave unelected eurocrats or billionaire techbros the right to censor the internet and decide what is "disinformation"?
The European Commission commissioners are confirmed by the EP.
If they are unelected, so is every government minister of every member state. This “unelected eurocrat” rubbish is stale disinformation.
Better remove it.
That is the only part of the above post that is wrong, though. Governments have no business deciding what is "disinformation", much less to censor such.
They own the websites, so of course they get to censor them.