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The European Union’s Digital Services Act went into effect on Aug. 25, just as the European Commission released a study detailing how the act can be used to stem online Russian disinformation campaigns. According to the study, “Preliminary analysis suggests that the reach and influence of Kremlin-backed accounts has grown further in the first half of 2023, driven in particular by the dismantling of Twitter’s safety standards.”
The results of the European Commission’s study are no surprise. Elon Musk’s buy-it-and-break-it tenure at X, the company formerly known as Twitter, has been well-documented. His general hypocrisy about being a “free speech absolutist” aside, the world’s richest man has spent a good amount of time misrepresenting facts about his new acquisition. Whether he is lying about the service having an anti-Trump bias before he bought it, or whether he’s lying about how many real-life followers he has on his platform, Musk’s X has been a relentless medium for misinformation.
But Musk is not alone. Although he is responsible for crushing his company’s moderation team and allowing disinformation to flourish on X, Meta and other social media companies have failed as well.
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