European Union enforcers of the bloc’s on-line governance regime, the Digital Companies Act (DSA), mentioned Thursday they’re intently monitoring disinformation campaigns on the Elon Musk-owned social community X (previously Twitter) following the Wednesday capturing of Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico.
The bloc has been formally investigating X since final December over disinformation in civic discourse and the effectiveness of the platform’s crowdsourced ‘Neighborhood Notes’ content material moderation function, amongst a bundle of different considerations — although, thus far, no sanctions have been forthcoming.
Yesterday Musk personally responded to — and thus amplified — a submit on X, by the right-wing political influencer, Ian Miles Cheong, which sought to hyperlink the capturing to views he urged Fico holds rejecting the World Well being Group’s pandemic prevention plan.
Requested to reply to the event throughout a Q&A with press, as a part of a background briefing the EU held to debate two Meta DSA probes the EU introduced earlier at the moment, a senior Fee official confirmed they’re monitoring content material on the platform and analyzing whether or not there may be “any extra proof” vis-a-vis the effectiveness of X’s disinformation mitigation measures — to feed the EU’s ongoing investigation.
Reminder: Breaches of the DSA can appeal to fines of as much as 6% of worldwide annual turnover so Musk’s penchant for shitposting might show costly for the corporate finally, i.e. throughout regulatory enforcement cycles.
Grok election watch
Additionally on Thursday X introduced that premium customers within the EU can lastly get their typing fingers on Musk’s generative AI chatbot, Grok — a software that’s primarily been skilled to be politically incorrect (vs the perceived political correctness of rival efforts like OpenAI’s ChatGPT). Musk posted briefly to trumpet the event, writing caveman-style: “Grok now out there in Europe.”
Seems Grok can be on the EU’s DSA watch listing: The senior Fee official mentioned at the moment that the EU is in “very shut contact with X on launch of Grok”.
The official urged X has delayed the launch of some components of Grok within the area till after the upcoming European Parliament election, with out specifying precisely which options have been disabled. We’ve reached out to the Fee for clarification.
“X has delayed the launch of a part of the Grok function till after the election,” the official instructed journalists. “Which I feel is a recognition on their aspect that a few of these options could have dangers within the context of civic discourse and elections within the context of the continued funding.”
We additionally contacted X about Grok’s EU launch however at press time it had not responded to our questions.
