Twitter has decided to abandon the EU’s code of conduct against online disinformation, but “its obligations remain,” European Industry Commissioner Thierry Breton announced in a message on the Elon Musk-run social network on Saturday.
“You can run but you can’t hide. Beyond voluntary promises, combating misinformation will be a legal obligation under the DSA (Digital Services Act) from August 25,” he recalled.
Launched in 2018, the European code of good practice brings together around thirty signatories, giants like Meta, Google, Twitter, Microsoft, TikTok, but also smaller platforms, as well as advertising professionals, fact-checkers and NGOs.
“If (Elon Musk) is not serious about the code, maybe he better leave it”
The signatories themselves participated in the drafting of the text, which contains around forty commitments aimed, in particular, at better cooperation with fact-checkers and at depriving sites that spread false news of advertising.
The departure from Twitter is not a surprise for the services of Thierry Breton. Since he took over the social network six months ago, billionaire Elon Musk has made it easy to moderate problematic content and appears to have amplified the voices of notorious spreaders of misinformation on the platform.
“If (Elon Musk) doesn’t take the code seriously, maybe he’d better leave it,” a European Commission official told AFP on Friday.
Source: BFM TV
