Sure, There’s Disinfo On ExTwitter, But The EU Should Not Be Demanding Censorship
Some of us have been warning about the dangers of the Digital Services Act (DSA) in the EU for quite some time, and pointed out that Elon Musk was effectively endorsing censorship in May of 2022 (after announcing his plans to purchase then-Twitter) by meeting with the EU's Thierry Breton and saying that the DSA was exactly aligned" with his thinking about his plans for Twitter content moderation. As we pointed out at the time, this was crazy, because the DSA is set up to position the EU government as ultimate censors.
Nearly a year ago, I got to moderate a panel at the EU's brand new offices in San Francisco (set up for the new EU censors to be closer to the internet platforms), where I was told repeatedly by the top EU official in that office, Gerard de Graaf, that there was no way that the DSA would be used for censorship, and that it was only about best practices," (while then admitting that if bad content was still online, they'd have to crack down on companies). It was clear that the EU officials were doing a nonsense two-step in these discussions. They will insist up and down that the DSA isn't about censorship, but then immediately point out that if you leave up content they don't want, it will violate the DSA.
Indeed, as the DSA has now gone into effect, last month EU officials released a document that reveals the DSA is very much about censorship. The boring sounding Application of the risk management framework to Russian disinformation campaigns" basically says that failing to delete Kremlin disinformation likely violates the DSA.
No matter what you think of Russian disinformation tactics, we should be very, very concerned when governments step in and tell companies how they must moderate, with threats of massive fines. That never ends well. And the EU is already making it clear that they view the DSA as a weapon to hold over the heads of websites.
On Tuesday, the very same Thierry Breton who Elon Musk insisted he was aligned" with tweeted a letter addressed to Musk (notably not company CEO" Linda Yaccarino) basically telling him that exTwitter needs to remove disinformation about the Hamas attacks in Israel.
Now, there's no doubt that there have been tremendous amounts of disinformation about the attacks flooding across exTwitter (and if I can find the time to finish it, I have another article about it coming). But no matter what you think of that, it should never be the job of the government to step in and threaten websites over their moderation practices. That never leads to good results, and always (always, always) leads to abuse of power by the governments to silence dissent and marginalized voices.
So, this kind of language from Breton's letter is dangerous nonsense:
Following 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.
If the content is illegal, then show which laws are being broken, and have law enforcement go after the perpetrators. If it's disinformation, which is not illegal, then the government can respond to the disinformation and seek to debunk it. But this letter is very clearly threatening Musk, telling him that he has very precise obligations regarding content moderation."
And while Breton (like de Graaf) then tapdances around the issue by talking about transparency" and effective mitigation," the throughline is clear: if you allow disinformation about topics that the EU government doesn't want spoken about, it will accuse you of violating the DSA.
I'm all for websites figuring out the best way to deal with disinformation on their own platforms. That can include a variety of responses such as responding to and debunking the misinformation, making it less visible, or any number of other measures up to and including removing the content or banning accounts. But it should be up to the sites themselves, and not the government.
In response to Breton's tweet, Musk did some tap dancing himself, saying:
Our policy is that everything is open source and transparent, an approach that I know the EU supports. Please list the violations you allude to on , so that that the public can see them.
Breton responded:
You are well aware of your users' - and authorities'- reports on fake content and glorification of violence. Up to you to demonstrate that you walk the talk. My team remains at your disposal to ensure DSA compliance, which the EU will continue to enforce rigorously.
Which is... nonsense. Again, this is basically the way the Great Firewall in China originally was set up. Officials would tell ISPs don't let anything bad through... or else" without ever defining what was bad and what wasn't allowed. The end result was that ISPs in China went aggressively towards overblocking content to avoid potential liability.
That doesn't mean Musk's response is great either. Directly asking EU officials to publicly post what disinfo they find problematic directly to Musk himself is... not a reasonable process. The DSA actually has requirements for a process enabling governments to flag content as trusted flaggers." Under such a program, exTwitter should then be able to evaluate the content and determine how to deal with it, and then be transparent about what it's doing (including if it decides the content is fine and should be left alone). But, having an EU official tag Elon in a tweet is... um... not that at all. It's just all silly posturing by both sides.
Again, I think that Musk could have done many, many things to better deal with disinformation on exTwitter. But it's not the government's place to step in and threaten him over speech.