this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2023
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EU stops advertising on X over hate speech. Fines could follow next year::The European Union is pulling its advertisements from Elon Musk’s X for now, citing an “alarming increase” in hate speech and disinformation on the platform formerly known as Twitter.

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[–] [email protected] 81 points 1 year ago (8 children)

This comment will make me sound like an idiot, but I’m just coming to believe that all of Musk’s decisions with X were targeted to this very outcome. To be the world’s centre of alt right propaganda. It just makes too much sense now.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago

He's not that smart. He got stuck having to buy Twitter after his pump and dump backfired. His solution to having to buy Twitter was to cut costs by firing staff and use his celebrity to manufacturer engagement with troll posts.

The problem he missed was that staff was necessary to keep hate speech under control and his trolling meant to drive engagement would backfire from advertisers and regulators.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I wouldn't say idiot, just very naive when it comes to your assessment of Musk's ability to think ahead. He's basically a South African Alex Jones who started out rich(er) 🤷

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

There has been an increase in blatant racism and prejudice. I don't know if those users eventually get banned. If the right takes any action against blatant hate speech, shitheads like Tim Pool will start crying and denounce the platform as not allowing free speech. If they allow "free speech," then the shitheads eventually drive all the normal people off the platform. The only good thing is that Twitter already has a left wing population, so as long as they can maintain that, it should avoid turning to shit. It was also a mainstream platform so hopefully that should maintain the normie population.

Sites like Lemmy instances are better at allowing a wider range of "free speech" because as long as the instance population is large enough to keep the shitheads a minority, they can stick to their own subs and generally keep the bullshit quarantined.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Wasnt truth social already that?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I only know one person that uses truth social.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

But he has like 70 million followers.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I'm not just the president, I'm also a member

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Truth is USA only, so X has a much broader reach.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Taken out of context, "Truth is USA only" is one of the most jingoistic phrases ever 😂

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think it's not impossible that the goal was simply to discredit Twitter entirely

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You'd be right. 10 days before he bought it, Musk got linked a plan to buy twitter and turn it into right-wing American WeChat.

I heard about it on Rachel Maddow's October 2 show (has it really been 2 months since then?)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Not sure why you’d assume you sound like an idiot. You’re just coming to a hypothesis based on all available information. It seems like a sane train of reasoning based on all the empirical evidence we’ve seen thus far.

It’s likely that he didn’t mean for it to happen the way it did, or that he hoped there’s a bigger appetite or marketplace for X in this capacity. It’s also possible he didn’t think it all through as was made more likely by the way he was trying to come up with reasons to get out of the deal.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

He's just a stupid narcissist that came into money. They don't think that far ahead, and it makes him look bad so he wouldn't want this outcome

[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Misinformation has already spread in the continent. This will be downvoted but "too little, too late" is the only thing that comes to my mind reading that piece of news.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Better late than never, I say

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Something to be said for doing the optimal thing with impeccable timing, I'd posit.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Elon was mulling pulling out of the EU and I really want this dumbass to follow through on that threat.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Please. Given that investors expect infinite growth and that EU is not an ignorable market for most businesses of this scale, it would destroy the company.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago (9 children)

I feel like the EU is one of the few forces of good in the world these days.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It is not. But it has been doing some right things when it comes to privacy protection and so on.

Still, Trump's border wall and caged children are merely cute compared to the shit going on at the borders of the EU.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

I disagree. The EU is one of the best things that ever happened to us Europeans, who knows, we might be fighting another war if history went different.

Politically, the EU spins around between based decisions and crap like chat surveillance, but over all, it has been a major contributor to the high standard of life in Europe, I'm convinced of this.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Still, Trump’s border wall and caged children are merely cute compared to the shit going on at the borders of the EU.

What kind of things should I think of?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Not for long we all get very right to fascist governments the next year's and things will go south. Germany with a CDU/AFD coalition, Le pen in France, if those two happen I see a dark future ahead, but hey climate change will bite us in the ass anyway. Why not go under under fascist leadership...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

We're not very good at learning from the past, are we?

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (5 children)

What exactly does the EU advertise?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I dunno. Like, cheese? EU cheese?

Maybe baklava?

It's a big place. I think. I dunno.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sorry if I misunderstood. I consider the EU to be a government body.

I assume cheese and baklava manufacturers are allowed to advertise wherever they like.

Does this mean the EU is not allowing these cheese and baklava companies to advertise where they want?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The EU is advertising itself and its initiatives, like DiscoverEU and other programs. They want their programs to be seen and used

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

It's wherE yoU live!

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

I would imagine tourism and such

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I had the exact same question.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is Elon Musk finally in the 'find out' stage of this whole fiasco?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

🥱

Don't you get tired of saying the same joke over and over again?

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No, actually I don't. Everytime it cracks me the fuck up, almost like Elon Musk's clown act.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I imagine this will make musk's "thermonuclear lawsuit" lose a few teeth

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Thermonuclear lawsuit? Even the name sounds ridiculous

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


In October, a few days after Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a deadly attack on Israel, the European Commission asked X to provide details of the actions it was taking to combat the spread of “illegal content and disinformation” on its platform.

A tidal wave of antisemitism, Islamophobia and misinformation has engulfed social media platforms in recent weeks since the unprecedented October 7 attack by Hamas, followed by air strikes and a ground offensive by Israel against the Hamas-controlled enclave of Gaza.

“It is unacceptable to repeat the hideous lie behind the most fatal act of antisemitism in American history at any time, let alone one month after the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement to CNN.

Germany’s Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency, which promotes equal treatment at work and in everyday life, announced on October 11 that it would stop using X entirely, citing an “enormous increase” in discriminatory and hateful speech on the platform.

“Ministries and state bodies should ask themselves whether it is still acceptable to remain on a platform that has become a disinformation network and whose owner spreads antisemitic, racist and populist content,” Ferda Ataman, Germany’s independent federal commissioner for anti-discrimination, said in a statement.

Sandra Wachter, a professor of technology and regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute, said they are required by the DSA to treat their boss like any other user by, for example, taking down his posts or flagging them as problematic if they break EU rules.


The original article contains 940 words, the summary contains 255 words. Saved 73%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I mean all social media has hate speech of one kind of another and it's almost all misinformation or part truths. Really depends on the agenda.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

a fine is unlikely until next year as each of the EU’s 27 member states first needs to appoint national “digital services coordinators” — with the power to impose penalties — by February 17. So far, only two states, Italy and Hungary, have done so, a commission spokesperson told CNN.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I get, and approve of, ending your sponsorship via ads. But I don't think legal recourse should be rewarded.

Any business transaction has risk. If you decide to advertise on Superbowl, you're putting your chips on NFL.

If you're advertising on Twitter, after the Musk purchase, your money is on Musk and Twitters staff to continue the value. If Musk says stupid shit that devalues your investment... well, that's on you for putting your money on it, and not exercising your exit clause a year ago.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

I think the person you replied to assumed that the legal action was related to the pulling of ads, when they're actually two independent incidents.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

It's two separate things, from the article:

A more drastic move could come next year. The European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, could impose a fine of more than $100 million on X if the company is found to have breached tough new EU rules aimed at cleaning up digital media.

[–] BlackSkinnedJew 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I believe it will be a big wave of new users into the fediverse soon.

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