European Union officials are threatening to ban X, formerly known as Twitter, if Elon Musk fails to do something about what they consider disinformation about the Israel-Gaza war. In a statement to Insider, member of European Parliament Stephanie Jan Corin made this following statement. [00:00:20] These are not empty threats. The EU Commissioner gave Musk a deadline of 07:00 PM, Central European Time on Wednesday that was yesterday to comply with European Union regulations, and he has responded. [00:00:37] Now, should Musk fail to do something about what they deem disinformation, the social media platform could be sanctioned and even banned, she said. She also argued that Elon Musk must understand that with his platform having more than 350 million users comes higher responsibilities. [00:00:56] There cannot be any illegal content or disinformation circulating within Europe anymore. In addition, in a letter signed by Thierry Breton, the European commissioner for the Internal Markets. [00:01:11] The EU said on Tuesday that the commission had indications the platform was being used to disseminate illegal content and disinformation in the EU over Hamas's attacks against Israel. Now, I do wanna get to Elon Musk's response to it in just a moment, [00:01:28] but I have to say it is incredibly difficult to moderate disinformation on social media platforms. Who is the arbiter of that disinformation? Who makes the decisions? Twitter has community notes, which have been helpful. [00:01:45] I will admit that. I have noticed know some of the claims that were inaccurate have been corrected. However, some of those claims get repeated without community notes included, and that's a problem. Elon Musk responded by saying, our policy is that everything is open source and [00:02:02] transparent, an approach that I know the EU supports. Please list the violations you allude to on X so that the public can see them, Merci beaucoup. Brenton responded to Musk by saying that the billionaire was well aware of warnings [00:02:17] from users and authorities about fake content and glorification of violence. Now, Hamas has been banned from using the platform. However, there are individuals who might not be part of Hamas, but they are using videos that are put out by this group on the social media platform, [00:02:38] and that content is not being taken down. So that's part of the complaint here. Some media organizations also did their own review of what's been transpiring in regard to the messaging and the content on the war in Israel and Palestine. [00:02:54] Over the weekend, X flagged several posts as misleading or false, including a video purportedly showing Israeli airstrikes against Hamas in Gaza. Thousands of users saw the post, and the most widely shared posts were flagged as misleading by the platform. Still, dozens of posts with the same video and [00:03:12] caption were not flagged by X's system, according to CNBC's review. And look, there has been a lot of misinformation and disinformation shared on the platform. I think we've all come across it, and just as a warning to you all, it's a warning that I take seriously myself. [00:03:29] You can't just believe everything you see on any social media platform. You have to find a way to corroborate it, find an actual credible source to confirm it. And I know that's an incredibly difficult thing to do, but if you're unable to do that, I think it's safer to avoid taking those posts as truth. [00:03:49] >> Speaker 2: Yeah, so Elon Musk sometimes does things that are just so silly. So, why don't you show us the videos? Well, because they just told you that they're overly violent and fake. So why would the people who want you to take those videos down take them and then [00:04:08] show them you think they're children, that they're gonna fall for that haha trick? That's absurd, okay? So now look, when it comes to Twitter, I can't call it X. It's so silly. Anyway, is it difficult to monitor all of the fake videos [00:04:25] on an enormous platform like that? Yes, it is. No question. We consider doing a platform, and one day we will at TYT, and I know the mechanics of running one because of that, and it is very difficult. Okay, now, having said that, here's where size matters. [00:04:42] So these rules do not apply in Europe unless you have 45 million daily users. That is a giant number. Now, Twitter has 350 million, so they're way larger than even where the regulations would apply. That is when you hire a lot of people because you're making a lot of [00:05:01] money to do that difficult task of moderating. But Elon fired all the moderators, or a lot of the moderators, and he fired, like, three quarters of his staff. That's why the platform is overrun with fake videos, gory videos, by the way, [00:05:16] by all accounts, I haven't seen it. I'm not saying that just to say, not me. I'm not looking for it. Anyways, people say that Twitter is totally overrun with porn, all right? So that's not supposed to be the case either. But that's what happens when you fire three quarters of your employees. [00:05:34] So he's got to figure this thing out. You're either gonna have a platform that's moderated, or you're not gonna have a platform in Europe and in a lot of other places. Look, America is totally lawless. You can buy the American government anytime you want, and you pass any laws, you can be completely unregulated. [00:05:49] But the rest of the developed world has laws and rules and regulations you have to abide by. >> Speaker 1: That's true. The other thing that makes this a far more complicated story, though, is we're talking about a global social media platform. [00:06:04] And so the idea that the anti free speech regulations that may exist in one country impacting what we see here in the United States is a little concerning. >> Speaker 2: Well, no, and so that's difficult for sure, [00:06:19] because now you got to comply with 200 different sets of laws. But remember, these things don't apply to you unless you're already relatively gigantic, okay? And now if they apply to things that are not gigantic, then I disagree with them because that overregulation kills off small businesses, [00:06:37] at least the monopolies for businesses that are already large. So it's a balancing act. You have to use good judgment here. But for the giant businesses, no, they all have a choice to make. So when, for example, if Iran says, okay, if you have any kind of freedom on X or Twitter or whatever, [00:06:55] or you don't do Iranian propaganda, I'm not gonna allow you in Iran. You guys just got to say, okay, then you're not allowing me in Iran and I'm moving. >> Speaker 1: And Musk did bend to the will of the Chinese government for [00:07:11] business reasons. >> 100%. So look at the decision that Elon Musk is making, and this is just a fact. He's willing to say to the Chinese, which is not a democracy in any way, shape, or form run by now essentially one guy. [00:07:26] You can call it a polite bureau, you can call it a dictatorship, you can call it whatever you like, okay? But he says to them, well, your market is large enough, so I'll do whatever your government tells me to do. Europe, you're not quite as large and you believe in freedom and democracy, so I'm not gonna listen to you. [00:07:43] Okay, well, now, look, Europe ain't nothing to mess with when they say there's a regulation. It's not like America, where you could just bribe all the government officials, okay? They'll apply that regulation and they'll cut off Twitter, and then we'll see what happens then.