The European Union has criticised X, formerly Twitter for having the worst ratio of posts not disseminating lies to those that promote misinformation.
The commissioner for values and transparency, Vera Jourova, said X’s poor performance was assessed during a pilot phase of testing a new methodology developed by Code signatories.
Jourova was speaking today about the most recent updates from other platforms that have signed up to combat disinformation under a strengthened EU Code of Practise that has been linked to compliance with the bloc’s legally binding Digital Services Act.
“A big novelty under the Code is now the publication of the first set of structural indicators such as how easy it is to find disinformation content, how much engagement such content receives or indicators about sources. These indicators — developed by the signatories — constitute an unprecedented and novel insight into disinformation on online platforms,” she suggested.
In May, just after EU legislators warned that policy changes implemented following Musk’s takeover were bolstering Kremlin propaganda and lambasted the firm for inadequate reporting, the Elon Musk-owned platform left the EU’s Code of Practise on Disinformation.
Under Musk, X has promoted the use of an already-existing crowdsourced fact-checking function, rebranded as Community Notes, which effectively aims to outsource the problem to a hands-off process of gathering platform users’ opinions, some of which may be appended as contextual comments to questionable tweets.
