EU: Twitter Is a Disinformation Magnet, Whether Elon Musk Admits It or Not
In news that is sure to thrill Elon Musk, European regulators say that Twitter is currently the biggest source of disinformation.
Twitter, now known as X, “is the platform with the largest ratio of mis/disinformation posts,” European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova said Tuesday while providing an update on the EU’s Code of Practice on Disinformation.
This voluntary program (which gets a little less voluntary with next year's implementation of the Digital Services Act), calls on major online platforms to self-report what they’re doing to combat misinformation and disinformation with an eye on making sure fake news doesn’t proliferate ahead of elections and during times of strife, like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Facebook, Google, YouTube, TikTok, and LinkedIn are among those who participate. Twitter was initially part of the code, but dropped out once Musk took over in 2022. He’s pushed back on reports that accuse Twitter of not doing enough to combat misinformation, arguing—in the name of free speech—that it’s best to demote or hide offending content than remove it.
That approach, according to a report released today, hasn’t done much to stem bad info on Twitter. In looking at a sample of 6,155 unique social media posts and 4,460 unique accounts in Poland, Slovakia, and Spain, the “proportion of disinformation actors relative to the total accounts sampled…are the largest and of similar size (8-9%)” on Twitter and Facebook, whereas YouTube had the smallest ratio at 0.8%.”
Jourova warned that Musk "is not off the hook" in terms of cracking down on misinformation just because he dropped out of the code, the AP reports.
Among the data self-reported by the major tech firms, Meta said it added its fact-checking label
Read more on pcmag.com
