Elon Musk’s Twitter needs to put more resources toward addressing sensitive content if it wants to comply with strict new European regulations ahead of a deadline in August, according to Thierry Breton, the bloc’s internal market commissioner.
There are a few “critical” areas that Twitter needs to focus on immediately, especially around child abuse and controlling disinformation around elections, Breton said.
The commissioner is touring Silicon Valley to explain the EU’s upcoming requirements on content regulation and draft rules on artificial intelligence, meeting with execs at companies from Twitter to OpenAI and Meta Platforms Inc. On Thursday, an EU team conducted a stress test of Twitter’s compliance systems. While promising, Breton said there are certain areas Twitter needs to focus on in order to comply in just six weeks.
Twitter has until Aug. 25 to implement the EU’s Digital Services Act, considered the world’s most stringent set of regulations in the policing of online content. Breton said after the meeting — with recently appointed Twitter Chief Executive Officer Linda Yaccarino standing next to him — that from Aug. 26, “the bird will fly on its own.”
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Billionaire owner Musk “made very clear that he will comply with our regulation and that he believes that DSA is a good regulation, and this is what he wants to do,” Breton said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. “But there’s some work to be done.”
The conversation between EU officials and Twitter’s leadership was constructive, Breton said. Employees from Chicago, Los Angeles and Ireland flew in for the test. The EU’s DSA unit came to San Francisco as well to review data with the company in order to understand how prepared it is to comply with the rules.
Twitter is interested in using technology to handle disinformation and illegal content, but Breton warned that the technology has to be proven and ready in time.
“My team spent two days and reviewed many, many programs they want to put in place,” the commissioner said. “I think it’s going in the right direction.”
Twitter said it is “on track” to be ready when the DSA comes into force, in a tweet from its global government affairs account. Separately, Yaccarino said “Europe is very important to Twitter.”
The stress test is being offered to all other platform companies that want to participate, the commissioner said. The commission will conduct another stress test with TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance Ltd., next month.
“Some CEOs would prefer not to change anything. It’s more comfortable. Some resist, some lobby,” Breton said. “Then at the end of the day, companies will follow.”
(Updates with quotes from Breton interview with Bloomberg TV)
