Backlash against Elon Musk began soon after he suspended Twitter accounts of several journalists among senior European politicians, with threats of future sanctions and lawmakers leaving the platform.
“News about arbitrary suspension of journalists on Twitter is worrying,” said Commission Vice President Vera Jourova in a tweet. “There are red lines. And sanctions, soon.”
Twitter suspended the accounts of several prominent journalists — including from the Washington Post, CNN, and the New York Times — covering the social media platform’s owner Elon Musk, who alleged they were endangering his family. Musk said the suspended profiles were of people who had posted his real-time location, describing the information as “basically assassination coordinates.“
Jourova — one of the EU’s more senior officials — cited the Digital Services Act and the Media Freedom Act as two major pillars of European tech regulation. The DSA — the EU’s content moderation rulebook which would ban arbitrary suspensions of accounts — was made law in the fall, but companies won’t start the compliance process until the summer. Social media companies first have to report the number of users they have in the EU in February.
The European Commission brought forward the Media Freedom Act in September to establish new safeguards for media. The plan is in the early stages of negotiations in the EU institutions.
Source: The My News
The German Foreign Ministry also raised its concern — via Twitter, stating that “Press Freedom must not be switched on and off at will. As of today, the journalists listed below can also no longer follow, comment or criticize us. This means we have a problem Twitter.”
Twitter has drawn criticism from the German government since Musk’s acquisition of the platform, which is observing Twitter “with growing concern,” Christiane Hoffmann, a spokeswoman for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said at a press conference on Friday morning. The government is still in the process of evaluating its policy on using the platform, according to Hoffmann.
Under the forthcoming EU rules, user accounts may be restricted or blocked — but they have to be informed prior and the reasons have to be set out and must be based on terms of use. Account holders have to be able to challenge the decision.
