Ads on Musk-owned social media site risk causing ‘reputational damage’ to the EU, its executive says in internal note.

The European Commission has decided to stop advertising on social media platform X, owned by Elon Musk, over “widespread concerns relating to the spread of disinformation,” according to an internal note obtained by POLITICO’s Brussels Playbook.

In a note sent to all heads of service and directors general, the Commission’s Deputy Chief Spokesperson Dana Spinant said disinformation on X, especially in relation to the Israel-Hamas war, had led the institution to “recommend to temporarily suspend advertising on this platform until further notice to avoid risks of reputational damage to the Commission.”

X has been under growing scrutiny in Europe as a result of the bloc’s new content moderation law, the Digital Services Act (DSA). The Commission, which enforces the law, in October sent a formal request for information to the company to explain how its handling of illegal content and disinformation connected to Hamas’ October 7 attack complies with the DSA.

  • @avater@lemmy.worldEnglish
    152•1 year ago

    Get fucking rid of twitter. I will never understand why people still cling to this platform, not in general, not after all the news, the bots, the right winged dipshits and everything else…what is so hard about it?

    • FoundTheVegan
      27•1 year ago

      Destroying Twitter was Elons plan for the get go. If he just closed the doors a year ago there would be outrage, now people are begging for it to die. Musk is still a moron, but all the Saudi money he got to buy Twitter was used to destroy the biggest platform of their critics.

      • @SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.mlEnglish
        30•1 year ago

        I really think he’s just that stupid. Everything he’s done at Twitter and at every other company he’s run has been due to the same fundamental error - thinking that he’s smarter than anyone else in the room, including people who are experts in fields he’s never even heard of. He has every indication of clinical narcissism, exactly like Donald Trump. He’s wrong, and when it becomes obvious that he’s wrong, he becomes infuriated and doubles down - exactly like Donald Trump.

        I think that Twitter is going to become the canonical example of Hanlon’s Razor. Elon at Twitter is going to be our version of Darmok and Jalad at Tenagra, except it’s going to mean someone not just shitting but having explosive diarrhea in the bed, and then showing it off like it’s something to be proud of. And still having a legion of followers who can’t help but say what a visionary position it is to shit in your own bed.

      • @GreenMario@lemm.eeEnglish
        21•1 year ago

        Naw. He’s addicted to it. He just got sick of all the lefties (anyone left of Hitler) on it. If Twitter shuts down he’s gonna have severe DTs.

      • Bernie EcclestonedEnglish
        4•1 year ago

        What Saudi money? The Saudis already had 5% of Twitter and rejected Musk’s offer at 54.20

    • @tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
      20•1 year ago

      I will never understand why people still cling to this platform

      I don’t have a Twitter account, but there isn’t really anything else comparable for when there’s a major incident, like a natural disaster. Random people from all over post video or relevant information, and Twitter’s search engine and hashtags are a pretty potent tool for connecting them quickly.

      The Reddit or Threadiverse model isn’t really great for that – that uses pre-established communities.

      I also don’t use Mastodon, but my understanding is that there isn’t a search engine there with the same instant global visibility as Twitter. If you want to follow individuals, I suppose it’s fine for that, but that’s really not something that I’m generally interested in doing. And it looks like Mastodon only even got full-text search very recently, like, last couple months.

      At least for my use case, the Threadiverse is a much better replacement for Reddit than Mastodon is for Twitter.

      • Reality SuitEnglish
        7•1 year ago

        This is what gets my conspiracy mind going. It feels like he is intentionally ruining it to reduce the flow of information. Yes, it’s a shit site, but people were able to organize pretty easily through it. Not so much anymore, unless you’re racist or a nazi. Maybe something will replace it, but the hindrance is already happening.

      • @Salix@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        7•1 year ago

        And it looks like Mastodon only even got full-text search very recently, like, last couple months.

        Also, this only works if the user opts in to being able to be searched/indexed. It makes it much harder to find content. If you’re looking for more content from a hashtag, you’ll only see people who knew to opt in

        On Twitter, anyone’s content can be searched as long as they are not private. If you search a hashtag, you’ll see every public post that uses that hashtag.

        Another annoying thing with Mastodon is that you have to go to the person’s instance to fully check their profile. Annoying when you’re using a Mastodon app, then it makes you open a web browser to go to that person’s instance

      • @blackbelt352@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3•1 year ago

        You’re right that performi g agreement and disagreement are certainly not equal on Twitter, but there is also the concept of ratio-ing where tons of quote tweets and replies compared to few likes is usually a good indicator that people are disagreeing.

        • @OhNoMoreLemmy@lemmy.mlEnglish
          2•1 year ago

          This actually says a lot about Twitter engagement.

          The only way to disagree on Twitter is to publicly call people out, while Lemmy and Reddit allow you to disagree without repeating and amplifying what they are saying.

    • @Voli@lemmy.mlEnglish
      5•1 year ago

      Porn most likely, um waiting for some artists to. Join mastodon or bluesky even if I’m doubtful about that

      • @PersnickityPenguin@lemm.eeEnglish
        8•1 year ago

        So many journalists, particularly human rights activists and Ukrainian conflict centered osint types use Twitter. Blows my mind.

      • @avater@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4•1 year ago

        People are willingly supporting an antisemtic, right-winged idot like Musk and his platform for porn? i mean it’s the internet there is plenty of porn outside of twitter…

    • @MeanEYE@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3•1 year ago

      It has its appeals. Being able to mention anyone publicly in your messages gives people feeling of empowerment. This also made companies react far faster to tech support than they would otherwise because people would see others complaining and join in. So fuckups would be obvious and publicly available. There was a merit to it, but for the most part those benefits only provided fertile ground to cancerous behavior.