The German Federal government is on the verge of fining Twitter up to €50 according to the nation’s Network Enforcement Act for failure to pull down defamatory speech, personal threats, and incitements of hate.
A German law that requires social media platforms to quickly respond to hate speeches and in some instances pull down illegal speeches before 24 hours of its report may test the Elon Musk-owned Twitter early.
Today, the Germany Federal Office made an announcement to begin “fine proceedings” against Twitter for a possible violation of the nation’s Network Enforcement Act.
It seems that Musk is about to reap the legal consequences of how rashly he is operating the company.
Since last year’s October ending, Elon Musk took over Twitter and proceeded to sack massively and carrying out extreme policy shifts.
Just this weekend alone, the self-proclaimed ‘free speech absolutist’ lifted a permanent ban placed on the former United States President Trump.
Backlash of Musk’s Actions
The actions of Elon Musk for the little time that he owned twitter network has become a great concern to lawmakers.
Even the social media users are afraid that Twitter can be corrupted to become a hellscape of little to no content moderation under the present staff-liquidating and shitpost loving billionaire owner.
As a result, just few hours of becoming the new owner of the network, Musk got himself a disciplinary action from EU (European Union).
That was the result of his suggestive twitter post “the bird is freed”.
Musk’s tweet got a response immediately by Thierry Bretton, the European Commission’s internet market commissioner who is relatively online himself.
Bretton tweeted back to Musk, offering him a passively aggressive emoji greeting.
He further wrote a punch line: “in Europe, the bird will fly by our (EU flag emoji) rules #DSA”.
By DSA, he is referring to the Digital Assets Act – the bloc’s currently minted reboot of e-commerce and digital services.
The intention of this act is to push for accountability of Internet businesses by setting up governance expectations of how to control societal risks such as illegal speech.
READ ALSO: UK Banks Refuses to Collaborate with Cryptocurrency Companies
So Who Laughs Last Over Musk Playing with Twitter?
According to a twitter thread, Musk is quite complicated and a radical. Musk’s independence to act as he likes with Twitter is already relative.
Moreover, it will continue to shrink from here onwards and is likely to accumulate more fines.
According to a close source, through the EU Digital Services Act, the era of big online networks behaving the way they like is at its end.
The DSA has set down a clear and harmonized rules for platforms, according to size, risk, and impact.
Going forward, the commission will commence inspection on big platforms including the potential to place effective and dissuasive sanction of about 6% of global turnover.
It will place a ban on operation at the EU single markets in the case of continuous serious breaches.