Just months before the bloc’s key content law – the Digital Services Act – and its potentially sweeping fines are due to come into force, Twitter failed to complete its first EU test on how it tackles disinformation.
Dozens of tech companies, including major social media firms such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and TikTok, were asked this month to hand over a report on how they implemented the EU’s anti-disinformation charter. 2022 Code of conduct on misinformationAgreed in June 2022. Tech firms were asked to provide hundreds of detailed numbers and data on how they deal with falsehoods and foreign interference on their platforms.
But Elon Musk’s social network Twitter was the only tech company to provide an incomplete report, a lack of data and no information about plans to cooperate with fact-checkers, according to the European Commission.
“I am disappointed to see that Twitter’s report has lagged behind others,” European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova said in a statement. “I look forward to a more serious commitment to our obligations arising from the Code.”
Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The code is voluntary. But by complying, social media companies can reduce some of their compliance obligations under the Digital Services Act (DSA) and avoid fines of up to 6 percent of their global revenue for violating the standards. Big tech platforms with more than 45 million users in the European Union will start facing scrutiny by September 2023, and Twitter is expected to fall into this category.
Among the data social media firms have been asked to provide are: how they detect and stop coordinated foreign manipulation campaigns; how they cut ad money for promotional actors; How they label political ads and allow researchers access to their data. All data had to be broken down for each of the 27 EU countries.
there is also twitter expected to cut off researchers’ free access to its data later Thursday. Several Twitter employees who worked on trust and safety issues have either been fired or left the company since tech mogul Musk bought Twitter in late October 2022.
“It is no surprise that the degree of quality var.[ies] “The resources that companies have allocated to this project are very high in line with what they have to offer,” Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said in a statement.
Report on the Revised Charter of the European Union on Disinformation expected to be Free Later Thursday. More than 30 platforms and organizations have signed on to the initiative. The next round of reports will come in July.