The EU’s Investigation Of ExTwitter Is Ridiculous & Censorial

People keep accusing me of criticizing Elon Musk because I hate" him. But I don't hate him, nor do I criticize him out of any personal feelings at all, beyond thinking that he often is hypocritical in his decision making, and makes decisions that defy common sense and logic. But when he does the right thing, I'm equally happy to call it out positively.

And while I've seen some people cheering on the EU's new investigation of ExTwitter under the DSA (Digital Services Act), I think it's extremely problematic and hope that Elon fights it. As we've explained, the DSA - while more thoughtful and careful in its approach than most US legislation about social media - remains a tool that can be abused for censoring speech.

Supporters of the DSA kept insisting to me that it would never be used that way, while wink-wink-nudge-nudging that if it didn't magically stop ill-defined bad content online then it had somehow failed.

And thus, it was quite notable when the EU's unelected technocrat enforcer, Thierry Breton, started threatening ExTwitter and other Silicon Valley companies earlier this year. The most notable thing was that Breton lumped together illegal content (which the sites are required to take down) and disinformation," which (in theory!) they're not required to take down, but are supposed to have some form of best practices for responding to.

Breton lumped the two together, falsely suggesting that websites were required to remove disinformation under the DSA, which would be quite problematic, given that there is no agreed upon definition of disinformation, and often there are extremely conflicting beliefs about what is and what is not disinformation.

And, yet, this new investigation seems focused on exactly that, among other things:

• The effectiveness of measures taken to combat information manipulation on the platform, notably the effectiveness of X's so-called Community Notes' system in the EU and the effectiveness of related policies mitigating risks to civic discourse and electoral processes.

This feels extremely heavy handed and really none of the EU's business. Community Notes, while not a replacement for a full trust & safety effort, is a really unique and worthwhile experiment (and one that I'd like to see other sites implement as well). How exactly does one judge the effectiveness" of the system and how is that the EU's business?

Similarly, this seems really sketchy as well:

• A suspected deceptive design of the user interface, notably in relation to checkmarks linked to certain subscription products, the so-called Blue checks.

I mean, yes, Elon fucked up the whole blue check as a marker of authority" concept by selling them, rather than using it as part of an actual verification system, but again, calling it deceptive design" seems like a ridiculous statement, and suggests that the EU now feels it's reasonable to critique product choices by companies.

Even if we think Elon's choices around this were dumb and wholly counterproductive, that really shouldn't be for the government to step in and decide.

And, of course, by kicking off this investigation over such silly things, it really undermines what might be legitimate concerns and areas of investigation, making the whole process - and the DSA itself - appear to be less credible.

Still, I can't help but close this story with a bit of a told ya so" directed at Elon. Remember, weeks after announcing his intention to purchase Twitter, Elon sat down with Breton and gave a full throated endorsement of the DSA approach. At the time, we warned him that if he really supported free speech, he'd actually be speaking out about the risks for free speech under the DSA (something old Twitter did in pushing back against earlier drafts of it). But instead, he told Breton that he agreed with this approach. And now he's its first victim.

I hope that he has ExTwitter fight back against this intrusion, as that would help make it clear that the DSA's rules should not get this deep into the level of tinkering with content on a site or with random features of a site the EU dislikes.