In a recent study published by the European Commission, it was found that after Elon Musk changed X's safety policies, Russian propaganda was able to reach a much wider audience, thanks to the changes made by Musk.
After an EU report revealed they failed to curb a massive Kremlin disinformation campaign surrounding Russia's invasion of Ukraine last month, there has been intense scrutiny on social media platforms Meta, YouTube, X (formerly Twitter), and TikTok, among others.
As part of the study conducted by civil society groups and published last week by the European Commission, it was revealed that after the dismantling of Twitter's safety standards, very clearly Kremlin-backed accounts have gained further influence in the early part of 2023, especially because of the weakened safety standards.
In the first two months of 2022, pro-Russian accounts have garnered over 165 million subscribers across major platforms, and have generated over 16 billion views since then. There have still been few details as to whether or not the EU will ban the content of Russian state media.
According to the EU study, the failure of X to deal with disinformation, had these rules been in place last year, would have violated these rules if they had been in effect at the time.
Musk has proven to be more cooperative than social media companies in terms of limiting propaganda on their platforms, even though they are finding it hard to do the same. In fact, according to the study, Telegram and Meta, the company that owns Instagram and Facebook, have made little headway in limiting Russian disinformation campaigns as a result of their efforts.
There has been a much more aggressive approach to the fight against disinformation in Europe than the US has. By the Digital Services Act that took effect last month, major tech companies are expected to take proactive measures to reduce risks related to children's safety, harassment, the use of illegal content, and threats to democratic processes, or risk getting fined significantly.
There were tougher rules introduced for the world's biggest online platforms earlier this month under the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA). Several large social media companies are currently operating under the DSA's stricter rules, which demand that they take a more aggressive approach to policing content after the website has been identified as having a minimum of 45 million monthly active users, which includes hate speech and disinformation.
If the DSA had been operational a month earlier, there is a possibility that social media companies could have been fined if they had breached their legal duties – leading to a breach of legal duties.
The most damning aspect of Elon Musk's acquisition of X last October is the rapid growth of hate and lies that have reigned on the social network.
As a result of the new owner's decision to lift mitigation measures on Kremlin-backed accounts, along with removing labels from related Russian state-affiliated accounts, engagement grew by 36 percent between January and May 2023. The new owner argued that "all news" is propaganda to some degree, thus increasing engagement percentages.
As a consequence, the Kremlin has stepped up its sophisticated information warfare campaign across Europe, threatening free and fair elections across the continent as well as fundamental human rights.
There is a chance that platforms will be required to act fast before it is too late to comply with the new EU digital regulation that is now in effect, the Digital Services Act, which was implemented on August 25th, before the European parliamentary elections in 2024 arrive.
It was recently outlined by the Digital Security Alliance that large social media companies and search engines in the EU with at least 45 million monthly active users are now required to adopt stricter content moderation policies, which include clamping down on hate speech and disinformation in a proactive manner, or else face heavy fines if they do not.
