United States: The European Union has opened an investigation into social media platform X, owned by Mr. Elon Musk, over the possible spread of disinformation. This includes terrorist and violent content as well as hate speech regarding the war between Hamas and Israel.
The EU investigation will also look at the way complaints are handled. X, formerly known as Twitter, announced that it had removed hundreds of Hamas-affiliated accounts from the platform. The EU has also warned TikTok and Meta for not doing enough to deal with disinformation.
According to reports, social media firms have witnessed a lot of misinformation about the conflict between Israel and Hamas, including doctored images and mislabeled videos.
Mr. Thierry Breton, the EU’s industry chief, noted that the bloc had sent X a “formal request for information” to determine whether the platform was complying with the Digital Services Act (DSA), a law aimed at protecting users of big tech platforms that recently came into effect.
Earlier, X CEO Ms. Linda Yaccarino stated that the platform had removed hundreds of Hamas-affiliated accounts and taken action to remove or label tens of thousands of pieces of content since the attack, in response to a letter from Mr. Breton. According to the EU, Hamas, a Palestinian militant group, is a proscribed terrorist organisation.
The UN’s World Food Programme has called the situation in Gaza “dire”, with food and water running out during an Israeli siege. Israel says the blockade will not end until its hostages are freed.
In his letter to Mr. Musk, Mr. Breton said “violent and terrorist content” had not been taken down from X, despite warnings. Mr. Breton did not clearly mention the disinformation he was referring to in the letter, but he said instances of “fake and manipulated images and facts” were widely reported on the social media platform.
Mr. Musk commented that “our policy is that everything is open and transparent, an approach that I know the EU supports.” “Please list the violations you allude to on X, so that the public can see them,” the Twitter owner added.
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