The EU Says Twitter Didn't Complete Its Homework Assignment

Kevin Hurler
Thu, February 9, 2023 

Several tech companies submitted reports for the EU’s Transparency Centre, but the union says that Twitter’s was lacking data.

EU officials are singling out Twitter today after the company’s report on the role of disinformation on its platform fell short of competitors like Google and Meta. Twitter now has until July to submit an updated report to the EU.

The EU has officially unveiled the Transparency Centre, which is a collection of reports from several different tech companies that have signed the 2022 Code of Practice on Disinformation as a part of the EU’s commitment to battling disinformation and misinformation online. The reports, submitted from companies like Google, Meta, and even the likes of Adobe, outline how each company is enacting the Code of Practice on Disinformation on their platforms. The EU was pretty happy with the reports received from most companies—except for Twitter

According to the EU’s press release, while Twitter did meet the deadline to submit, the company’s report is short on data and lacks information on how Twitter fact checks information on its site. Twitter now has to resubmit a report by this July, with complete information on how the company is implementing the Code of Practice on Disinformation.

“Today’s reports mark a step in the battle against online disinformation. It comes as no surprise that the degree of quality vary greatly according to the resources companies have allocated to this project,” said Thierry Breton, EU’s Commissioner for Internal Market, in a statement. “It is in the interest of all signatories to abide by their commitment to fully implement the Code of practice against disinformation, in anticipation of the obligations under the Digital Services Act.”

Twitter did not immediately return Gizmodo’s request for comment on the matter.

Now that Twitter has changed hands to CEO Elon Musk, the company appears to have focused less on battling disinformation and more on rolling out useless UX updates. Recently, users noticed that Twitter was testing out an excessive and unnecessary 4,000-character tweet feature. Disinformation, meanwhile, is continuing to run rampant on the platform—after Musk’s purchase of Twitter closed in late October, the company promptly removed its covid-19 misinformation policy. Despite this, Twitter’s history of misinformation is a long one, one that predates Musk’s ownership.

Gizmodo