Twitter to pull back from Europe’s disinformation crusade

Twitter is on the verge of withdrawing from one of the Europe Union’s efforts to stamp out disinformation.

In the coming days, the social networking giant, which is owned by Elon Musk, is expected to end its participation in the bloc’s code of practice of disinformation, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter, who were granted anonymity to speak to discuss internal discussions between the company and the European Commission.

The code of practice is a voluntary rulebook that was revamped last year and includes obligations for companies like Twitter, Meta and Alphabet to track political advertising, stop the monetization of disinformation, and provide greater access to these platforms to outsiders. While not mandatory, companies’ participation in the code was designed to help offset some of these firms’ obligations within the separate, and mandatory, Digital Services Act — new social media rules that include fines of up to 6 percent of a company’s annual revenue.

A Commission spokesman said that as the code of practice was voluntary, it was up to individual companies to determine if they would participate. So far, the spokesman added, Twitter had not complied with its obligations under the code.

An email sent to Twitter for comment was returned with a poop emoji.

Twitter is expected to officially withdraw as a so-called co-signatory of the code of practice sometime next week after Musk officially signs off, according to one of the individuals who spoke to POLITICO. Ever since the billionaire fired half of Twitter’s employees last fall, the company has drastically pulled back its participation in Europe’s online content rulebook, and was the only tech giant that failed to meet its transparency obligations under quarterly reports mandated under the code of practice.

Thierry Breton, Europe’s internal markets commissioner, has publicly stated he would personally hold Musk to account for complying with the bloc’s content rules, though Twitter’s decision to withdraw from the code of practice on disinformation directly goes against that pledge.

This article has been updated withthe Commission’s response.