European Commission: sanctions against Twitter over Russian media accounts

BRUSSELS – European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova said the EU could impose sanctions against Twitter, …

which distributes, among other things, Sputnik and RT, Bloomberg reports.

Jourova said that the platform’s billionaire owner , Elon Musk, who has promised to restore “freedom of speech” to Twitter, “should not underestimate the EU and the significant sanctions that the social network could face if it does not abide by EU rules,” the message reads.

The politician, Bloomberg further writes, made it clear that Twitter will act in the interest of the Russian Federation if it does not try to eradicate “Russian propaganda” on the platform, thus violating the sanctions regime imposed by the European Union against Russia.

WASHINGTON-The New York Times, after careful analysis, …

published an article claiming that hate speech has increased on Twitter since Elon Musk bought the platform.

“Insults against African-Americans used to appear on the social media platform an average of 1,282 times a day,” writes the NYT. “After the billionaire became Twitter owner, they rose to 3,876.Insults against homosexuals used to appear 2,506 times a day, now 3,964. Anti-Semitic posts have increased by more than 61 percent.”

Musk’s response was not long in coming: the news is false. In a Twitter post, he shared a graph showing how hate speech “continue to decline despite significant growth in users!”

Times findings come from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, the Anti-Defamation League and other groups that monitor social media.

“Elon Musk sent the signal to every racist, misogynist and homophobe that Twitter was open to hosting their views,” said Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate.

“Freedom of speech does not mean freedom of scope. Negativity should and will get less reach than positivity,” Musk wrote, adding that Twitter will make such data available to the public weekly. “There are about 500 million tweets a day and billions of interactions: those about hate are <0.1 percent of what gets posted on Twitter!”