Twitter has withdrawn from a voluntary agreement put in place by the European Union to combat online disinformation, a senior EU official has said.
European Commissioner Thierry Breton said in a tweet on Friday that the platform has withdrawn from the EU’s “code of good practice” against disinformation, which has the committed support of other major social networks. However, the “obligation” remains. Twitter, he added, referring to strict new digital provisions that the EU will put into effect in August.
“You can run but you can’t hide,” he said. Twitter, based in San Francisco, responded automatically – as it usually does to most questions from the press – and without commenting.
The decision to drop a commitment to combat misinformation appears to be the latest move by Twitter owner billionaire Elon Musk in his bid to ease controls on the social network after acquiring it last year.
Musk has rolled back previous rules against misinformation and thrown the company’s verification system and content moderation policies into chaos in his goal of turning Twitter into a great digital plaza. Google, TikTok, Microsoft and Facebook as well as Meta , the parent company of Instagram, are among the subscribers to the EU code, which obliges companies to measure their fight against misinformation and issue regular reports on their progress.
Twitter had already given indications that it was unwilling to honor its commitments. The European Commission, the executive arm of the 27-nation bloc, which censured Twitter this year for failing to provide a full first report on the code, said it provided little information. specific and none selected.
Breton said that under the new digital provisions that incorporate the code of good practices, combating disinformation will be a “legal obligation.” “Our teams will be ready to enforce” the provisions, he said.
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