Breton announced in a post on X why infringement proceedings were being opened against the social media platform. In addition to not countering disinformation, Breton cited a deceptively designed user interface and breaching transparency obligations.
At the heart of the investigation is whether Elon Musk's platform failed to prevent so-called illegal content from being spread; this content is little more than posts that do not align with approved government narratives. They will also be looking into whether the platform's new Community Notes feature is sufficient for fighting what they term “information manipulation.” The feature allows users to leave comments on posts that are misleading, essentially crowdsourcing the process of fact checking.
Breton added: “We now have clear rules, ex ante obligations, strong oversight, speedy enforcement and deterrent sanctions and we will make full use of our toolbox to protect our citizens and democracies."
This marks the first significant probe that the EU has launched against X since the new Digital Services Act was passed last year. Businesses that do not comply with the act could be hit with fines of as much as 6 percent of their yearly revenue and may end up being banned.
A spokesperson for X, Joe Benarroch, told Bloomberg: "X remains committed to complying with the Digital Services Act, and is cooperating with the regulatory process. It is important that this process remains free of political influence and follows the law."
X is being targeted because Elon Musk lets users post on topics that go against official government narratives
Many believe that X is being targeted because owner Elon Musk has been allowing its users to post about topics that the government has traditionally censored.
This is precisely why we don’t expect to see the EU investigating Google, YouTube or Facebook for the lies it allows to be published. These platforms tend to play nice with governmental agencies, even going so far as colluding with them to censor narratives they deem unfavorable. This includes topics such as the dangers of COVID-19 vaccines, the inefficacy of masks, posts supporting police officers and other right-leaning stances.
In fact, Facebook actually censored a report by journalist Matt Taibbi about organizational censorship, claiming it violated its “community standards” – but considering the report named Facebook 31 times, it’s no secret why they didn’t want people sharing it on their platform. Taibbi identified Facebook as one of the top offenders in violating people’s First Amendment rights.
Facebook, YouTube and Google have all worked to keep people from discussing topics like vaccine injuries, the Hunter Biden laptop story, criticism of lockdowns and the validity of the 2020 election.
A drop of documents known as the Twitter Files exposed internal documents that Elon Musk obtained when he purchased the social media platform outlining how Twitter, under its previous ownership, and other popular social media platforms worked with numerous federal agencies to suppress content and control the public narrative. The files showed how the CIA and FBI sat in on meetings with Twitter officials in pursuit of getting content censored.
Musk essentially exposed these nefarious operations, so it’s no wonder that it’s his social media platform that is being singled out for bogus investigations. He called out the EU on X, asking them if they were taking similar actions against other social media giants.
He said: "Because if you have those issues with this platform, and none are perfect, the others are much worse."
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