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Information reaching Kossyderrickent has it that Elon Musk may block access to Twitter/X in Europe to avoid new regulation, Insider reports.
Musk has become increasingly frustrated with having to comply with the Digital Services Act, a person familiar with the company said. The person added that the Tesla billionaire, who acquired Twitter a year ago for $44 billion and rebranded it to X, had discussed simply removing the app’s availability in the region or blocking users in the European Union from accessing it. This would be similar to the way Meta is blocking people in Europe from using its new app, Threads.
The Digital Services Act came into effect in August across the European Union. It requires online platforms such as X and Meta Platforms Inc. to have transparent systems in place for content moderation as well as the removal of false and misleading information. EU Commissioner Thierry Breton stated last week that the Commission is officially investigating the social network’s compliance with the new law and has formally requested detailed information from the platforms regarding their actions related to mitigating and removing harmful or toxic content. The European Commission, as of last week, was officially “investigating X’s compliance” with the Digital Services Act, according to EU Commissioner Thierry Breton
The Commission can impose “periodic penalty payments,” or fines, up to 6 per cent of a company’s global revenue. Elon Musk has fired most of X’s trust and safety team. During Twitter’s pre-Elon Musk days, the trust and safety team of the platform had hundreds of people, and an overwhelming of them were fired soon after the billionaire business magnate bought the platform in October 2022.
The Business Insider report added that Elon Musk deliberated upon the idea of limiting access to Twitter to certain geographies almost immediately after taking over the company.
“That’s part of the reason he gutted international teams the first chance he got,” one of the people familiar was quoted as saying by Business Insider, in reference to the thousands of Twitter employees Musk laid off or fired after taking over the company. Previously, it was reported that Twitter decided to remove the ability to block users. The exact timing of when this will happen is currently unknown.
However, Twitter will allow users to hide their likes, but this feature will be available only to paid users.
Additionally, Twitter will soon introduce the ability to make audio and video calls on the social network.
The news of Musk’s plans to acquire Twitter became known in April of last year. However, in July, he withdrew the offer. The company sued him for the deal’s termination. In October, it was announced that Musk had indeed purchased Twitter.
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