Musk's policy on Twitter has contributed to growth of Russian propaganda

Elon Musk's X, formerly Twitter, has played an important role in allowing Russian propaganda about Ukraine to reach more people than before the full-scale war, according to a study by the European Commission.

Source: Washington Post; European Pravda

Details: The study found that despite the voluntary commitments of major social media sites, including Meta, to counter Russian propaganda, Russian disinformation against Ukraine is flourishing.

The study, which lasted a year, concluded that allowing unrestricted spread of disinformation and hate speech would have violated the Digital Services Act, the EU law on social media, if it had come into force last year.

"Over the course of 2022, the audience and reach of Kremlin-aligned social media accounts increased substantially all over Europe," the study found. 

"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," experts added.

The EU has taken a much more aggressive regulatory approach to government-sponsored disinformation than the United States.

The Digital Services Act, which came into force for the largest social media sites on 25 August, requires them to assess the risk of spreading false information, prevent the worst from being promoted by algorithms, and subject their performance to auditing.

The study was conducted by Reset, a non-profit think tank that advocates for greater oversight of digital platforms.

Lacking full access to the data held by companies – data that should be more readily available under the new law – Reset relied on public information, such as the number of interactions with problematic content from people who did not follow the account that posted it.

The study showed that Musk's X was not the only one that failed to stop the spread of Russian propaganda. Instagram, Telegram and Facebook were also criticised.

Background:

Earlier, European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton met with Mark Zuckerberg, the owner of Meta, and Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, who acquired the social network last year.

Twitter is in the spotlight as its new owner has changed many of its content regulation rules, including those conflicting with new EU rules.

Earlier, after the social media site was threatened with blocking, Musk agreed that Twitter would pass the Digital Services Act's "stress test" to see if the platform would meet EU standards, although the results would not be made public.

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