Elon Musk has until the end of Wednesday to respond to demands from Brussels to remove graphic images and disinformation linked to the violence in Israel from his social network X — or face the full force of Europe’s new social media rules.
Thierry Breton, the European Union commissioner who oversees the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA) rules, wrote to the owner of X, formerly Twitter, to warn Musk of his obligations under the bloc’s content rules.
If Musk fails to comply, the EU’s rules state X could face fines of up to 6 percent of its revenue for potential wrongdoing. Under the regulations, social media companies are obliged to remove all forms of hate speech, incitement to violence and other gruesome images or propaganda that promote terrorist organizations.
Since Hamas launched its violent attacks on Israel on October 7, X has been flooded with images, videos and hashtags depicting — in graphic detail — how hundreds of Israelis have been murdered or kidnapped. Under X’s own policies, such material should also be removed immediately.
This is some “quality” reporting. Nowhere does the EU says to remove “graphic violent images”, it’s only asking for transparency in what gets removed and the removal of disinformation and calls to violence.
Thanks for clearing that up.
Modern “journalists” are almost always scum.
Or what lol. Rich people are above the law.
I’m glad to see for once the fines are proportional to revenue, and not a fixed amount. 6% hurts.
Will it hurt though? How are they going to collect the 6%? Do US based banks cooperate with the EU on this kind of thing? What happens if Musk just tells them to go fuck themselves?
I assume EU-based ISPs will be forced to ban access to the website for noncompliance, otherwise it would have literally no teeth whatsoever
That’s actually pretty scary for the Internet.
Nah it’s pretty good for the internet. We also blocked Russian propaganda outlets and shit in the EU. It’s much nicer.
Oh right, I forgot you Europeans didn’t have a first amendment
Guess what
We don’t even have the american constitutionOur laws are older and much more robust than the ones in the US.
They also adapt with the times.
But that just might have to do with the fact that EU politics don’t cater that much to corporations but instead to the people that elected them.
Probably a lot of Xi tter customers headquatered in EU. They can say to their own banks to not send money.
how can settle for that?
when normal people spend years in single cell rooms for small offenses Lmao 🇺🇸🦅😎
This is in the EU, so your emojis don’t make sense. But you are right, rich people get off way too easy the world over.
Xitter is a corporation that doesn’t live in the EU
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You’re thinking of profit. Revenue is all money coming in before expenses. Revenue is still a big number even if they’re losing money.
Also it’s 6% of turnover, not revenue. And world-wide, not just the EU.
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This is not toothless…well it is a bit in that they constantly warn instead of imposing the fines but 6% of revenue has fuck all to do with net profit(which is always positive or else it would be a loss).
I mean, twitter is at the risk of bankruptcy so…
EU can only penalize him on revenue (not profit) in the EU. So likely small fries compared to the billions of dollars of devaluation and advertiser revenue he’s already squandered on his crusade.
He’s gonna fuck this up, too.
He won’t, we all know he won’t. He’d sooner get Twitter banned from Europe than actually try to improve his platform.
The intent is to ruin twitter. That was why he used $22B of Saudi money to buy it.
That is such a win though.
Although the powers that manipulate Elmo won’t like it when they can’t manipulate the politics in the EU anymore.
A porn actress was made accountable for similar actions in less time and with more impact.
It’s almost as if billionaires are untouchable?
Has it been 24 hrs yet?
End of Wednesday in Brussels was ~7h ago. So, yes.
So, what is the followup?
If that is Net Revenue, I have some bad news for the EU. 🤣🤣🤣
I think you’re thinking of profits, which is revenue minus costs.
EU fines are a percentage of global revenue, which means all the money you make in any way, anywhere in the world, before subtracting any bullshit.
Which was $4.4 billion in 2022 and is estimated to be roughly $3 billion for 2023, so the maximum fine would be 180-264 million depending on which figure is used.
For comparison, the net loss (not profit) for 2022 for twitter was 270 million.Per occasion, and the Commission can also create a moderation enforcement team specifically for Twitter, basically forcing Twitter to have moderation, and put the cost of said moderation on Twitter, as charges separate to the fine.
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Think your stats are off? You can see a post in my history with more EU focused math. If yours is better let me know and I’ll update ;)
Oh shit, that’s awesome!!
Isn’t EU fines turnover, which is revenue plus cost?
The “brilliance” of Elon’s plan: he is impervious to EU fines because he doesn’t make any money.
He makes a lot ofmoney - he just loses more.
If that is gross revenue, I have bad news for the EU. “X” is, IIRC, operating in the red since Musk bought it.
It’s revenue, not profit. “X, formerly Twitter” still gets paid by advertisers, even if the amount is much lower than it used to be.
Ah. Alright, fair enough, thanks for correcting my mistake.
Is this the thing that finally makes Musk feel some pain? You can’t wiggle out of this one, EU law is pretty tight on this stuff.
Is this the thing that finally makes Musk feel some pain?
Not if his goal is to run Twitter into the ground. (And I’m about 3 months or so into believing it is.)
Although I can understand that perspective, I honestly think that he’s actually just very, very dumb and completely clueless about how money actually works and how businesses function. He’s rich enough to never have had to learn any of that and spend his way through failure after failure. I am absolutely certain that he believed that he’d run in there, steer the ship right, and all would be well.
steer the ship right
That was his goal but not the “right” that is usually referred to by this.
Yeah absolutely, be thought that it was easy because he didn’t pause to consider any of the confounding factors - the same mistake he always makes, self drive to Mars bases he gets fixated on the fact it’s possible and doesn’t really consider the many things making it difficult.
I think he thought that he’d go in and don’ta big lever that turns it from biasing the left and amplifying people hating billionaires then when he turned it off everyone would cheer and clap. He’s the typical idiot that has shitty political options and thinks everyone else secretly agrees bit only he’s breve enough to say it.
No he’s very smart in that he’s using Xitter to increase his influence, and thereby his wealth in the long term. Gonna cost him but he’ll probably come out net-positive, even if Xitter doesn’t.
Either you’re oblivious, or you’re being paid to prop up this “Elon’s just a big dummy” idea.
You know he had a fair bit of involvement in some other businesses, right? His destructive behaviour has been on an entirely different level from the moment he acquired Twitter.
The investors that gave him money to buy Twitter aren’t going to be happy if he intentionally squanders their money.
On the one hand, you insult me. Then you make a comment that supports my position. Very odd.
Fine, I’ll bite. How am I supporting your position?
Purging the images off social media will make it easier to deny that the atrocities ever happened. Keep them there in all their gory uglyness , perhaps put a spoiler tag over them to prevent someone with a feeble constitution from accidentally stumbling onto them and accidentally being triggered , but leave them there as evidence of the evil that happened.
It should be archived and put somewhere people can go and access it for historical and educational purposes, but that’s it. It’s horrible, and even knowing what’s happening is ALREADY bad enough.
There are already people denying it ever happened , this why it is needed.
Any phrase, request or threat in the from of “do X or be subject to the rules” is inherently flawed.
Why not skip the asking part and go straight to the enforcing the rules part because they’re, you know; the fucking rules.
^ sue em n block em
The better would have been to ban Twitter. People and politics have to understand you can’t talk with irrational people.
Nationalize it.
Governments use twitter, a private, for-profit system, far too much for official communications. Governments should run their own communications systems that the public can interface with.
Poop emoji incoming
Or else what? Small fine? You’ll never see him.
Did you even read the text post? 6% of revenue, because some places have reasonable laws that charge percentages of revenue.
I read it. I was asking a rhetorical question. 6% of X revenue is not 6% of elon revenue, fwiw. Impact is still limited.
They don’t have the legal right to take money directly from Musk as nice as that would be.
Of course impact is going to be limited. The alternative being unlimited? I don’t think Musk deserves most of his wealth, but for the penelty of something like this to be taking literally all of it away would be insane. It’s always going to be limited. That’s basically what laws do. They should be proportional.
The alternative? What alternative?
My only point here is this isn’t going to have any major impact on his day to day operations regardless of how you try to spin my comments. Not sure why this is such an argument for you.
6% of revenue is apparently 300 million. IRC last year, twitter had 1.2 billion in interest payments, but only 1.1 billion in cash flow. Unless twitter has suddenly increased cash flow or repaid loans, a 300 million dollar fine may mean it’s impossible for twitter to repay interest payments. It’s potentially an existential threat and could tip twitter into bankrupcy.
It’s not nothing and it’s certainly better than nothing. And that 6%? That’s just the tip of the shit berg.
For example, Germany NetzDG fines can be as high as 50 million euros… PER CASE. Tech Crunch:
Obviously Musk is a top tier genius with a full legal department, and I’m sure twitter clamped down on illegal hate speech in the past half year so that only 600 cases are reported to German authorities, but that 300 million may just be the trickle of shit before the pipe fully bursts.
In Musk’s defense:
Twitter’s press office auto-replied with a poop emoji in response to an emailed request for comment.
The alternative to them being limited is unlimited. There’s no in between for those words. It’s either limited or it isn’t and is unlimited.
I get wanting more, but what percentage is “right” for you. There has to be a percent that’s acceptable, and anyone can always say it isn’t enough, unless it’s unlimited which would be rediculous.
The alternative to them being limited is unlimited. There’s no in between for those words. It’s either limited or it isn’t and is unlimited.
Mind… blown
Well, it’s revenue not profit, so theoretically it could be money out of his pocket that the social media platform formerly known as Twitter perhaps wouldn’t be able to pay by itself.
Freedom of speech must stand. If it’s not true, counter it with more speech. Governments shoulder never have the power to block speech nor curate speech.
So what’s slander?
