European Commissioner for Industry Thierry Breton announced the news on Twitter, while recalling the obligations of the social network bought by Elon Musk.
Twitter has decided to leave the EU’s code of practice against online disinformation, but “its obligations remain”, European Commissioner for Industry Thierry Breton announced on Saturday in a message on the social network run by Elon Musk. .
“You can run but you can’t hide. Beyond the voluntary pledges, combating disinformation will be a legal obligation under the DSA (the Digital Services Act) from August 25,” he said. he recalled.
“Our teams will be ready to enforce the law,” he warned.
Launched in 2018, the European code of good practices brings together around thirty signatories, giants such as Meta, Google, Twitter, Microsoft, TikTok, but also smaller platforms, as well as advertising professionals, fact-checkers and NGO.
“If (Elon Musk) isn’t serious about the code, maybe it’s better if he leaves it”
The signatories themselves participated in the drafting of the text, which contains around forty commitments aimed in particular at better cooperating with fact-checkers and at depriving sites broadcasting fake news of publicity.
The departure of Twitter is not a surprise for the services of Thierry Breton. Since taking over the social network six months ago, billionaire Elon Musk has eased the moderation of problematic content and appears to have amplified the voices of notorious misinformation spreaders on the platform.
“If (Elon Musk) is not serious about the code, it may be better that he leaves it,” commented an official at the European Commission contacted by AFP on Friday.