{"id":1191764,"date":"2023-10-12T16:41:01","date_gmt":"2023-10-12T20:41:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1191764"},"modified":"2023-10-12T16:41:01","modified_gmt":"2023-10-12T20:41:01","slug":"the-eu-is-probing-xs-response-to-israel-hamas-misinformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1191764","title":{"rendered":"The EU is probing X's response to Israel-Hamas misinformation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The European Union (EU) has opened an investigation<\/a> into X (formerly Twitter) for lackluster moderation of illegal content and disinformation in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. The move, via<\/a> Financial Times<\/em>, comes two days after EU Commissioner Thierry Breton sent an \u201curgent\u201d letter<\/a> to X owner Elon Musk asking the billionaire about the company\u2019s handling of misinformation. The formal probe is the first under the newly minted Digital Services Act (DSA), which requires platforms operating in Europe to police harmful content \u2014\u00a0and can levy fines significant enough to give it teeth.<\/p>\n

EU officials sent a series of questions to X that the company has until October 18 to answer. The commission says it will determine its next steps \u201cbased on the assessment of X replies.\u201d The DSA, which passed into law<\/a> in 2022, requires social companies to proactively moderate and remove illegal content. Failing to do so could lead to periodic fines or penalties that, in X\u2019s case, could total up to \u201cfive percent of the company\u2019s daily global turnover,\u201d according to FT<\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Researchers and fact-checkers have cautioned about widely distributed<\/a> misinformation on X following the Hamas attacks on Israel. Tuesday\u2019s letter warned Musk about harmful content on X, signaling that Breton was prepared to use the DSA\u2019s full muscle to enforce compliance. \u201cFollowing 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,\u201d Breton wrote. \u201cLet me remind you that the Digital Services Act sets very precise obligations regarding content moderation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Musk\u2019s response appeared to contain at least a whiff of snark. \u201cOur policy is that everything is open source and transparent, an approach that I know the EU supports,\u201d the X owner and Tesla CEO wrote. \u201cPlease list the violations you allude to on X, so that that [sic] the public can see them. Merci beaucoup.\u201d Breton retorted, \u201cYou are well aware of your users\u2019 \u2014 and authorities\u2019 \u2014 reports on fake content and glorification of violence. Up to you to demonstrate that you walk the talk.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"EU
EU Commissioner Thierry Breton<\/figcaption>
Isabel Infantes \/ reuters<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Yaccarino\u2019s response<\/a> claimed the company redistributed its resources and shuffled internal teams to address moderation issues surrounding the Middle East conflict. She said X has removed or labeled \u201ctens of thousands of pieces of content\u201d since the attacks commenced.<\/p>\n

The CEO added that X deleted hundreds of Hamas-aligned accounts from the platform while stating that the company works with counter-terrorism organizations. Yaccarino said<\/a> X\u2019s Community Notes<\/a>, a crowdsourced moderation feature, is now supported on Android and the web (with iOS \u201ccoming soon\u201d). She also claimed the company has \u201csignificantly scaled\u201d a feature that sends notifications to people who liked, replied to or reposted something that later received a Community Note fact-check.<\/p>\n

The EU\u2019s newly opened probe also questions how X is prepared to react during a crisis and what procedures it has to handle associated misinformation. The company allegedly has until the end of October to respond to that line of questioning.<\/p>\n

Breton isn\u2019t focusing exclusively on X. The commissioner also sent letters to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg<\/a> and TikTok owner ByteDance this week, reminding them of their obligations to the DSA in the wake of the Middle East bloodshed.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/the-eu-is-probing-xs-response-to-israel-hamas-misinformation-204101029.html?src=rss
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\nSource: Engadget – The EU is probing X’s response to Israel-Hamas misinformation<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The European Union (EU) has opened an investigation into X (formerly Twitter) for lackluster moderation of illegal content and disinformation in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. The move, via Financial Times, comes two days after EU Commissioner Thierry Breton … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99,110],"tags":[98],"class_list":["post-1191764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-engadget","category-unfiltered-rss","tag-engadget"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1191764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1191764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1191764\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1191764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1191764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1191764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}