How can the EU deal with Musk and his tech agenda?

DW (English)

The EU is assessing whether X has breached the bloc's tech rulebook. But what can it do if X's owner Elon Musk refuses to comply with the landmark Digital Services Act?

Transcript

00:00It won't be easy to deal with Elon Musk, as he cozies up to the United States government

00:06and has the ear of the new president, but the EU isn't giving up.

00:10The bloc has expanded its investigation into X, all while European institutions and leaders

00:15diversify their social media presence and join X's rival micro-blogging platform Blue

00:21Sky.

00:23It looks similar to X, was founded by former Twitter boss Jack Dorsey, but it promises

00:28to be more democratic and decentralized.

00:31Last week, the European Central Bank joined Blue Sky.

00:34Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and top diplomat Kaya Callas are also recent

00:40entrants.

00:41There is a tendency to leave X and go into other platforms.

00:47This is due to the fact that X, after the acquisition by Elon Musk, has become a much

00:51worse social network with a lot of hate speech, a lot of propaganda speech spreading without

00:57control.

00:58It's potentially a social network that can constitute a threat to democracy for the EU.

01:04Renda and his think tank have frozen their X accounts recently and moved to Blue Sky.

01:09The diversification drive, analysts say, is one way the EU can balance X's influence.

01:15The EU has also asked X to hand over internal documents.

01:19It wants to investigate whether X is gaming the algorithm to boost the visibility of far-right

01:24politicians.

01:26If X is found to have breached the Digital Services Act, the EU can impose a fine of

01:31up to 6% of the company's global turnover or even shut it down.

01:36But there are many challenges ahead.

01:38If the EU has to resort to blocking X, it can be seen as a crackdown on freedom of speech.

01:43And nobody really believes that paying a bit of a fine is going to be a problem for the

01:47world's richest man.

01:48Moreover, the EU authorities need X's cooperation to get access to information they need to

01:55investigate X.

01:56Experts say Musk is likely to use his ties with President Trump to avoid sharing critical

02:02information.

02:03They have to disclose how these algorithms are being fine-tuned and how they impact our

02:08everyday lives.

02:09With Trump in power, though, we see this very bad marriage between tech moguls or owners

02:15of these huge companies and state power.

02:19Blue Sky is relatively new and has only 27 million accounts in comparison to more than

02:24300 million on X.

02:26But experts say the tendency to leave X is growing as people seek alternatives and a

02:31more decentralised digital town square.

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