While the world continues to wonder what ‘free speech absolutist‘ and gadfly billionaire Elon Musk might mean for the future of Twitter, the European Union has chalked up an early PR win in the long game of platform regulation — extracting agreement from the Tesla founder that its freshly rebooted approach toward content policy sounds like good shiz.
EU internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, paid a visit to the would-be Twitter owner, Musk, yesterday for a meeting at his gigafactory in Austin, Texas, where we’re told regulation of online speech was a key discussion topic, alongside “mutual interest” supply chain chat.
Breton was keen to introduce Musk to the newly agreed Digital Services Act (DSA), which will come into force across the bloc in the coming years — likely in early 2023 for larger platforms such as Twitter — with the aim of harmonizing content governance rules and dialling up consumer protections. Breaches of the regulation, meanwhile, can attract fines of up to 6% of global annual turnover.
Asked whether the newly agreed regulation fits with his planned approach for Twitter, Musk responded: “I think it’s exactly aligned with my thinking”.
“It’s been a great discussion,” Musk also said in the brief Q&A with Breton. “I agree with everything you said really. I think we’re very much of the same mind. And I think anything that my companies can do that would be beneficial to Europe, we want to do that. That’s what I’m saying.”
