It Begins: The EU Summons Musk To Appear Before Them
Earlier this week, we wrote about how the EU seemed to practically be salivating over getting its hands on Elon Musk now that he owned Twitter. The first half of that post was about how he was at risk of running afoul of his GDPR commitments, potentially allowing the jurisdiction over GDPR enforcement to fall away from just the Irish data protection authority and to any other EU authority. That's notable because many people believe that the Irish DPC is way too friendly to the companies they regulate. For the time being, Musk may have staved off the GDPR issue by naming an acting data protection officer" (DPO) to be the main point of contact with the Irish.
However, much of the article talked about the upcoming Digital Services Act in the EU, and how Elon had (ridiculously, stupidly) said publicly that he completely agreed with its approach, even as Twitter had been actively pushing back on the problems with the DSA.
Some aspects of the DSA have now officially entered into force, though it's all really in a preliminary state, as the really serious stuff doesn't kick off until early 2024. But there are some requirements in the meantime, including Twitter needing to report how many active users it has to the European Commission to determine if it's designated as a Very Large Online Platform" (VLOP), though I prefer the comment a friend in the space recently made calling them ROUS (from The Princess Bride).
As TechCrunch is reporting, it's unclear how much Twitter has done to be ready to comply, as the entire drama with Musk and the takeover going back many months likely stalled some of the decision-making. And... that might be a problem if no one is left to pay attention:
TechCrunch has also heard concerns about Twitter's ability to comply with the DSA from another direction. A source familiar with how Twitter was preparing for dialled up EU regulation - pre-Musk takeover - told us lots" of work had been done but said it's all been stymied" by the transition.
As if on cue, the European Parliament (not the European Commission...) has now decided to summon Musk to show up and explain what the fuck he's doing.
While much of this is just grandstanding, not unlike when Congress summons tech CEOs, it's not at all clear that Musk has any clue how to actually deal with the EU, and the fairly complex nature of the DSA and what's expected of him (if you're interested in understanding just how messy the DSA is, listen to our recent podcast with two DSA experts).
Musk, of course, will say that he has plenty of experience dealing with foreign regulators and policymakers (and enforcers) as he's had to deal with them at Tesla and SpaceX. But everything he's said and done to date suggests he has no clue about the details and nuances (and political realities) as it pertains to regulations around speech, the internet, and social media. I can't imagine any of this will end well.