European Commissioner Thierry Breton and the UK’s Michelle Donelan want Elon Musk to get a grip on gruesome Israel attack videos posted on X.

Elon Musk has until the end of Wednesday to respond to demands from Brussels to remove graphic images and disinformation linked to the violence in Israel from his social network X — or face the full force of Europe’s new social media rules.

Thierry Breton, the European Union commissioner who oversees the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA) rules, wrote to the owner of X, formerly Twitter, to warn Musk of his obligations under the bloc’s content rules.

If Musk fails to comply, the EU’s rules state X could face fines of up to 6 percent of its revenue for potential wrongdoing. Under the regulations, social media companies are obliged to remove all forms of hate speech, incitement to violence and other gruesome images or propaganda that promote terrorist organizations.

Since Hamas launched its violent attacks on Israel on October 7, X has been flooded with images, videos and hashtags depicting — in graphic detail — how hundreds of Israelis have been murdered or kidnapped. Under X’s own policies, such material should also be removed immediately.

  • crandlecan@mander.xyzEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    That’s irking to limiting press freedom if gruesome photos and videos are forbidden. That ain’t good, EU!

    Edit: for all the dumb fucks downvoting me… Where the fuck did I say anything about fake news and propaganda?

    Anyone has an idea what turned the American people against the Vietnam war? Exactly. Horrible videos and photos. That’s how the world learns about immoral horrors. And Nazi concentrationi camp photos in all the Nazi German newspapers early on would have changed the course of ww2. But there weren’t any published photos…

    2nd Edit: important context I missed: from https://feddit.nl/comment/3638132

    The only images the EU asked to have removed are images from unrelated conflicts and video games portrayed as geniune images of the current events, so blatant disinformation.

    It’s in the request made by the EU. The Politico article made up the part where all graphic images are to be removed.

    • rentar42@kbin.social
      1·
      1 year ago

      Get out of here with your silly US-centric idea of “absolute free speech”. Pretty much every civilized country in the world has boundaries to what is considered acceptable.

      And even the US does (though they are fewer than elsewhere, granted).

      But for some reason the US has produced this myth that absolute freedom of speech (which it doesn’t have) somehow is the best possible choice (which it isn’t).