Europe gives Elon Musk 24 hours to respond about Israel-Hamas war misinformation and violence on X::Thierry Breton, the European commissioner for the internal market, warns Elon Musk about disinformation on X related to the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Time to ban Twitter and call it a day.
I deleted my Twitter at the beginning of this year. Never used it much, just followed a lot of metal bands on it. I don’t regret it for a single second. Everyday since, it’s just been one giant non-stop shit show. It’s sad to see so many still use it, but for my own good conscience, I can’t support that platform in any way. I avoid it like the plague.
I’ve only used it like 5 times to contact airlines. Their social media team seems better staffed and more helpful than the hotline. Tried using it in the early days, but the 160 char limit was a total turnoff for me. Felt like back in the 90’s with a 160 char limit imposed on text messages, and everybody using cryptic abbreviations. That almost triggered some high school PTSD. And when they changed that I was already too far immersed in other channels to get my updates to really bother trying again.
I am so sick of seeing his face everywhere. I’m blocking everyone.
He’s basically the new Trump, in that for five years you could not escape Trump’s fucking face on every website you visited. Perhaps Musk isn’t quite that level, but he’s not far off. He’s in the news an insane amount, and it’s basically as annoying as Trump, only he’s not as ugly or stupid.
Elon is Desantis. Like him or not, Trump makes great TV. Its like the best thriller ever created. Elon is fine when other people talk about him. But when he’s on TV, he’s boring just like Ron. He’s got no personality.
These people gotta worship someone because they lack any sort of self identity of their own and critical thinking skills.
They need a leader to tell them what to do.
Are you assuming there’s so much bad coverage of Musk because people worship him? It’s almost always dunking on how much of an idiot he is and hoping he loses lots of money.
I understand it can be legitimately annoying to hear about some people repeatedly, but when the discourse is about how awful those people are, you’re better off just not clicking the link. Let people who want to eat popcorn at the circus do so and leave the circus.
I still see Trumps face everywhere, though primarily on left wing media. Oddly enough, I see it there more than I do on right wing media. (Gotta see what both sides are saying, the truth is in the middle somewhere)
I miss Apollo where yoy could block any keyword which prevented me from seeing commwnts or posts that contained specific text…
Edit: someone below pointed out Voyager can do this in theur web app! Thanks again dude!
Voyager allows you to do that and since it a PWA you can use it and/or install it on any platform. https://vger.app
MAN YOU ROCK!! Thanks! Now I can block “elon” and “trump” lmao
YW!
Boost does that. You can filter out a whole instance if you want.
Ok but how do you filter away “elon musk”
What app or webui are you using? Most of them have keyword filters now.
Voyager, what do you recommend for iphone?
I primarily use Thunder, but Mlem, Memmy, and Arctic have filters afaik. Avelon has filters but you need to pay for it. That’s what I’ve seen with what I’ve tested. Liftoff only has blocking of users/communities.
Mlem allows for filters
Arctic has separate filters for the post body and post title, which is really nice.
Avelon has keyword filtering and also supports instance blocking.
Both have been great!
Voyager has it on their web app, I need to update my post. I checked out Avelon and it looms you you must pay for upgraded app to filter. No thanks.
Ah, didn’t realize that was a paid feature (already paid so I can’t see what is or isn’t paid).
I’m not a fan of web apps, they’re much slower than native. Arctic is completely free for all features, so that could be a better choice for someone wanting filters and a native experience. It’s still in TestFlight at the moment, link in sidebar for its community.
Awesome, thanks for sharing. Ill check out Arctic too then
No problem! There’s lots of great apps out there right now, really happy to see such an active community of developers!
Lol, I had to share this due to the timing of my comment…
Turns out there was a new voyage release TODAY that allows filtering keywords in the phone app version. Lmao whoops!
i believe the is a chrome/firefox extension where you can block news about certain people. I dont remember how it’s called.
Is he … is Musk growing an evil goatee?
I have to assume this is part of a PR strategy wherein he claims to have been replaced by his evil twin from the mirror universe.
It’s a little late for that.
He’s trying desperately to prove he hit puberty.
He has kids, so I can only assume this is to prove he’s a teenager at heart.
The hair restoration treatment is now out of control and he’s slowly turning into the wolfman.
Looks like his pubic hair is likely just migrating for the winter
Tenorman: Alright alright, I’ll trade you my pubes back for the money.
Musk: You will? Oh, cool!
Tenorman: How much did I charge? Oh, yeah, $10.
Tenorman: You got change for a 20?
Musk: Oh, uh…
Musk: I only got six dollars and 12 cents.
Tenorman: Oh, well, that’s okay.
Tenorman: Here, just give me the six dollars and then I’ll give you the 20.
Musk: Okay.
Tenorman: Now, give me the pubes and I’ll give you back two dollars.
Musk: Right.
Tenorman: Now, give me the 12 cents And I’ll give you the rest of your change back.
Musk: Cool.
Tenorman: And then give me the 20 and I’ll give you the pubes.
Musk: Sweet!
Musk: Uh- Ah, Godammit!
I think he’s trying to inspire more tony stark comparisons now that everyone makes fun of him.
Oh, cool, so when does he sacrifice himself for the good of the universe?
there are reasons no one compares him to Tony Stark anymore
He’s Justin Hammer
Gotta round out the super villain motif…
Frittering away precious scalp strips to cover a artificial speed bump of a chin.
Musk is about to learn why getting rid of the content moderation department wasn’t very cost-saving to the operation of his platform.
Musk is about to learn
Aren’t you an optimist.
Hah, I think you have a VERY valid point. Musk truly, and I mean TRULY DOESNT CARE WHAT ANYONE THINKS.
he cares what people think - he wants people to pay attention to him.
I’m sure he’ll learn…the wrong lesson
Musk has made it clear that this was never about money. Er, at least not about Xitter making money.
“Thierry Breton, the European commissioner for the internal market, said in a letter addressed to Musk on Tuesday that his office has “indications” that groups are spreading misinformation and “violent and terrorist” content on X, and urged the billionaire to respond within a 24-hour period.”
Sounds like it’s just a strongly worded letter.
A bit below that it says that they’re also threatening fines of 6% of annual revenue.
Are they gonna give Twitter more money then? /s
You’re thinking of profit, not revenue
Are we sure
Twitter𝕏’s revenue is still in the positive? I don’t think direct injections of capital count as revenue.Revenue is money in before costs, so yes their revenue is still positive given they are actually charging some people positive amounts. Their earnings are quite likely negative.
$2bn in 2022 for non-US. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitter-statistics/
Assume 80% of that is Europe, and a 25% drop in revenue since X, is $1.2bn, then 6% is $72m. This would likely be a daily fine of about $197K per day USD, minus shifty billionaire revenue reporting.
EU revenue fines are generally calculated by global revenue cause companies always try to shift the money to other countries.
Assume 80% of that is Europe, and a 25% drop in revenue since X
What’s the basis for assuming a 25%? Instead of, let’s say, a 90%?
Hadn’t read the actual letter. It would be interesting to know what the specific request they have is.
Ah so that’s why he’s tanking it
You have to have revenue in order to be fined 6% of it.
6% of zero is zero.
Am I missing something? I said revenue not profit. Or is the joke that Twitter isn’t making any money anymore?
I think it hardly ever was profitable and even revenue should be quite dropping since it became X
6% of their revenue is probably still billions of dollars. Might even amount to the biggest fine ever.
$2bn in 2022 for non-US. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitter-statistics/
Assume 80% of that is Europe, and a 25% drop in revenue since X, is $1.2bn, then 6% is $72m. This would likely be a daily fine of about $197K per day USD, minus shifty billionaire revenue reporting.
Wow, that’s MUCH less revenue than you’d expect from a worldwide behemoth like the shithole formerly known as Twitter!
I sometimes feel like the only person that remembers that DSA exists. It went into effect in August.
Doesn’t that only come into effect at the beginning of 2024?
If I understand correctly it’s a gradual rollout.
He doesn’t have time for that, after all he’s the busiest man on the planet and earns his billions every day.
Which is why his Diablo 4 Druid is level 100. Lol.
If your going to bash him, don’t do it for him playing computer games.
…there are plenty of proper reasons!
When someone claims they are so work-focused that they sleep in the office and expect others to follow suit, finding out that they have a high level character in a game that’s only a few months old is worth bashing them over.
It’s not that Elon plays games, it’s that he pretends he’s too busy to do so and expects his employees to be too busy to do so.
That’s not the point. The point is that oligarchs always go on about how hard they work, which makes them somehow deserve all the wealth they’ve swindled us out of. But if you work so hard, you won’t have time to sink endless hours into a game.
Bashing him for his choice of game is fair play.
He’s still playing that shitty game?
I enjoy Diablo IV and I think that’s okay. It’s a wonderful dopamine generator and a good podcast companion.
The fact that it’s online-only should be reason enough for no one to buy it and continue enabling this anti-consumer behavior. But whatever, no one cares I guess.
The fact that it’s online-only should be reason enough for no one to buy it and continue enabling this anti-consumer behavior. But whatever, no one cares I guess.
The fact that it’s online-only may be reason enough for you not to buy it. You don’t get to dictate what the rest of us do.
I’m not sure I understand why you consider online-only “anti-consumer.” It’s just the direction this series has taken. We don’t call any other requirements “anti-consumer.” I don’t have a graphics card on my PC good enough to support VR, does that mean Half Life Alyx is “anti-consumer” for being VR only?
At the time I understood the frustration the community expressed with Diablo III, but we’re well past that now. And network connections are far better now than they were then.
Does it limit Blizzard’s audience? Sure. Does it alienate some people who played Diablo II? Sure. But to Blizzard, the benefits in terms of design freedom, baked-in multiplayer zones, and anti-cheating capabilities outweigh that loss.
You don’t get to dictate what the rest of us do.
No one is trying to dictate what you do. I’m making you aware that your choices impact everyone else and expressing my dismay that you and other purchasers don’t seem concerned about the direction of this industry.
I’m not sure I understand why you consider online-only “anti-consumer.”
I mean it’s very simple. It benefits the corporation. It has zero benefit to the consumer, and several drawbacks, including the inability to play anytime there’s not an active internet connection (mobile), and the inability to play when the developer inevitably goes out of business or their servers go down, whether temporarily or permanently.
It’s just the direction this series has taken.
I don’t know what this means. It’s not “just a direction”, it’s an explicitly anti-consumer direction.
I don’t have a graphics card on my PC good enough to support VR, does that mean Half Life Alyx is “anti-consumer” for being VR only?
Uhhhh no? Why would it be?
But to Blizzard, the benefits in terms of design freedom, baked-in multiplayer zones, and anti-cheating capabilities outweigh that loss.
None of these have anything to do with requiring a server ping for single player modes.
Why would he not pay somebody to play?
Why do you know what level he has in some game? Why are people so obsessed with Elon in general? Ignore that clown.
He’s one of the wealthiest people in the world
So? Do you know the level of Gates in some game? Or any other absurdly rich person? This is only happening with Elon.
Little note: he doesn’t earn billions every day
oh, so sorry
Boy I hope the EU does something besides sit around with its dick in their hands.
Failure to comply with the European regulations around illegal content could result in fines worth 6% of a company’s annual revenue.
“I remind you that following the opening of a potential investigation and a finding of non-compliance, penalties can be imposed,” Breton wrote.
The second might be just talk but the first one is very much “something”.
Since Twitter lost $20 billion in value this year, he would argue that means the EU owes Twitter $1.2 billion.
Edit: Yes, revenue vs profit. I get it. It was a joke.
Revenue. Doesn’t matter what they’re worth.
Revenue, not profit.
In other words - Twitter would lose even more money. And they’d lose it to people that can take it straight from their bank accounts. 6% of it, to start with.
So $0.48 of every blue checkmark would go straight to the EU.
And, IIRC the penalty is based on last years or accounting periods data, i.e, from times where they still earned money.
Since Twitter lost $20 billion in value this year, he would argue that means the EU owes Twitter $1.2 billion.
Edit: Yes, revenue vs profit. I get it. It was a joke.
Wouldn’t surprise me if that was Elon’s “strategy” here.
That’s pretty much the joke I was going for, but I guess I should’ve been more obvious……
What about the country where those megacorps are living?
Go EU, Go!
$2bn in 2022 for non-US. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitter-statistics/
Assume 80% of that is Europe, and a 25% drop in revenue since X, is $1.2bn, then 6% is $72m. This would likely be a daily fine of about $197K per day USD, minus shifty billionaire revenue reporting.
It’s 6% of world-wide turnover, not EU revenue. The neat part about turnover is that you can’t play shenanigans with accounting. It’s very unlikely to be the full 6% though and they will want to keep some headroom for escalation and even more egregious cases.
But yes this is absolutely “drive a company bankrupt” kind of territory and that’s precisely the intention. Either Twitter shapes up, leaves the EU market, or gets fined into non-existence.
Any updates on the situation? The 24h period must be done by now.
I have the same question. I hope the reply is published.
Failure to comply with the European regulations around illegal content could result in fines worth 6% of a company’s annual revenue.
I guess joke’s on the EU…
Because they aren’t making much money? Considering this isn’t based on profit but revenue, that’s a pretty significant fine
I hope they have the PR for when he misses the deadline already written up so they can just hit “Publish” when he fails to respond.
The saudis might give him money to mitigate fines. I’m sure that’s not beyond him to continue with a misinformation campaign if the price is right.
Well, more money for the EU and less for the Saudis wouldn’t be a bad outcome either.
I’m having real hard time trying to understand what kind of “misinformation and violence” is spreading on twitter, that isn’t on other social media platforms such as right here. I wonder what even counts as “misinformation” at this point, as you can make quite outrageous but factual claims about both sides (Israeli government and hamas)
This is the most confusing conflict I’ve ever paid any significant attention to, and it feels like the more I learn, the less I understand.
I would argue a major difference between misinformation on some place like Lemmy and misinformation on Twitter, is that Musk as owner of Twitter is amplifying this misinformation. Elon Musk frequently replies to people spreading misinfo and shouts out their accounts.
What if it was some other celebrity with similarly large following doing that on some other platform?
I don’t quite buy that explanation. Basically the same thing is happening elsewhere too but instead of it being done by a single individual it’s done by many. The end result is just the same.
I’ve been on several social median sites and ironically it seems reddit and X both have a lot of information.
Reddit had several western articles about Hamas beheading 40 babies. The upvotes and comments are extremely biased and genocidey.
The beheading 40 babies claim has be debunked but there’s still no talk about it on reddit, they’ve just chewed that shit up and run with it.
X has a lot of not farms and Indians so its very muddy trying to distinguish what type of information you’re getting.
They are both terrible, but the thing is that Israel has a positive connection to Western governments and the Palestinians don’t. So when Hamas kills civilians it’s jihad and terror and when Israel does it, it gets handwaved or even supported.
Our media is not unbiased, no matter how much they tell you and are trying to uphold the illusion of factual correctness. We simply live on the other side of the narrative and if that is challenged, it’s called “misinformation”. Anyone thinking there is a right and a wrong side here is either a moron or has a personal stake like family or friends in the region.
The conflict in that area will never end without secularism and the chance of that happening is zero. It’s one cut of religious fanaticism versus another.
This comment is a good example of why your “Misinformation” policing is fascist authoritarianism.
Your debunked “misinformation” was just debunked again as the images of the dead babies have hit the internet. But according to you, the original claims should have been censored as misinformation.
I tried to trace the origins of the conflict yesterday, and I got to the Russian revolution with still no concrete answer. I figured out the reason for the Balfour Declaration and the reason why there was a Zionist movement for a Jewish state, but I have yet to figure out what factors caused the events leading to that.
We’re talking stuff like footage for other wars, cgi, even stuff from video games
Nevermind fining Twitter. Elon will see it as a badge of honour and Trumpspin.
What the EU needs to do is block access to the website outright across its member states.
Ah yes! Censor the internet! That’s the solution!
Twitter is not the internet, its now a misinformation site that financially rewards that misinformation. The slow death of twitter prompted the birth of threads, bluesky and mastodon to name 3. One goes, three rise. And nobody is being censored - thats the point. What this would be is the consequence of their misuse of free speech.
Twitter is not the internet, its now a misinformation site that financially rewards that misinformation.
There are an awful lot of users who disagree with that and use it daily. I’m on there on and off all day to interact with my industry and the only misinformation I see is ads for games that have fake gameplay.
This is just more of the same “Elon bad” crap over and over. Seriously, you’re encouraging the EU to censor the internet like China does because space man is bad.
If you can browse Twitter without seeing a myriad of racial slurs and dogwhistles, you’re either browsing with your eyes closed or just don’t mind racism.
Onto the actual point
There’s a lot of people that agree that Trump wasn’t a complete liar. That doesn’t make it any less true that he was.
Still don’t think the internet should be censored, just think Twitter is a shithole.
twitter has been the best place to get real time updates about both the ukraine war and now this israel v hamas conflict
i don’t doubt there’s a lot of questionable content on there, but the value in spreading information outside of “official sources” is huge. the first casualty in a war is the truth and governments would love to get rid of people spreading the reality of the facts on the ground
Yeah but when there’s a million and one people with zero knowledge on the situation parroting “facts” that’s called misinformation. Not to say that having a variety of viewpoints and sources isn’t important, just that a social media site where anybody can say or post anything isn’t the best way of getting it.
two days ago, there were reports going around online that 20 drones had entered israel from lebanon in the north. the information was coming from the IDF. at the same time, sirens were going off across all of northern israel. 1.5 million israelis were told to shelter in place. again, information from the IDF
right after this, rumors online started going around that the US government was evacuating their embassy in beirut, essentially implying that the war was going to spread to lebanon. a really big deal, if true
turns out those were false. the rumors spread about 30 minutes or so and then the embassy in beirut responded to this and said there was no evacuation.
moral of story? yes, misinformation spreads quickly. people are deathly afraid and fear spreads like fire. but it also gets debunked because there are people out there paying attention.
it’s sort of the idea of the open marketplace of ideas. bullshit spreads, but there are people out there dedicated to the truth. it’s a price we have to pay, otherwise we would be blind to these things.
Or you stay in your bubble, not seeing any algorithmic suggestion but only discussing with people you trust. Not saying it’s better but definitely one possible way to use it.
Twitter is, like any other public space, filled with those you choose to follow and their friends, etc etc. If you follow people who post things you don’t like, we’ll that’s what you get.
I swear I’m not just making this up. I’ll gladly take screenshots of the first 10 pages of my feed anytime and you won’t see anything distasteful. You will see crypto scams and some crypto bros saying nonsense, but that’s no different from walking into a 7-11 in the city. Haha
Yeah. Exactly. Space man is bad. It’s not free speech to harm others. We are in the US where woman don’t have rights over their choices in many states.
What is this “free speech to harm others” narrative? Can you explain the logic on that one?
We tried not censoring the internet and it hasn’t worked
If it makes you feel better, think of it as Europe defederating from Twitter
Whoever chooses which sites get banned from the internet has a whole load of power. They could feasibly, in time, become corrupt and end up banning threats to corporate monopolies, like the Fediverse.
So instead we allow known, unelected bad actors like Musk free reign, to protect us from hypothetical elected future bad actors?
They will become corrupt over time. Power and money yield corruption. Always.
Exactly. So I wouldn’t trust anyone with the power to dictate which websites you can visit and which you can’t
Ya and ban all forms of protest against apartheid.
That’s the EU and it would be the US too if we didn’t have the first amendment
