Elon Musk is likely waking up to a major headache. And that headache is being caused by Germany who is’s calling for the EU to take direct action against Twitter:
A senior German official said on Thursday Twitter should join other tech firms in being directly monitored by the European Commission, saying the company’s erratic behaviour under new owner Elon Musk posed a threat to free speech.
Sven Giegold, the state secretary in charge of competition policy at Germany’s economy ministry, pointed to Twitter’s abrupt suspension of journalists’ accounts and restrictions on the access to some links.
In a letter to two European Commissioners, Giegold called on the EU to launch an investigation and said the Commission should act to prevent what he called Twitter’s “anti-competitive behaviour”.
Twitter and the EU did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“General terms and conditions that change almost every hour, erratic justifications for extensive restrictions on links and the blocking of journalists threaten freedom of competition and pose a risk to freedom of expression, information and the press,” Giegold wrote on Twitter, while sharing his letter.
And Elon isn’t going to like this either:
German regulators are already pushing government institutions to stop posting announcements exclusively to privately-held platforms, touting alternatives like the fledgling decentralised social media network Mastodon.
According to the Commission’s new regulations on digital markets, it will take over the supervision of large platforms such as Facebook and Google, Giegold said.
“However, Twitter is not yet classified as a dominant digital platform, also because the company’s sales are still too low,” he said. “Nevertheless, Twitter exerts a great influence on shaping public opinion worldwide and also in Europe.”
The fact that the Germans are pushing Mastodon is significant. Germany is a big member of the EU bloc. And if they do something, others are likely to follow. And that will make Elon’s life even more miserable than it already is. Because that will drive eyeballs away from Twitter, and his behaviour will under much greater scrutiny by a bloc that has a history of lowering the boom on big companies. That’s not a place that I would want to be if I were Elon. But then, the only person to blame when it comes to Elon Musk being in this situation is Elon Musk.
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This entry was posted on December 22, 2022 at 8:55 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Twitter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Elon Musk’s Troubles Just Got A Lot Worse As Germany Calls For EU Action On Twitter
Elon Musk is likely waking up to a major headache. And that headache is being caused by Germany who is’s calling for the EU to take direct action against Twitter:
A senior German official said on Thursday Twitter should join other tech firms in being directly monitored by the European Commission, saying the company’s erratic behaviour under new owner Elon Musk posed a threat to free speech.
Sven Giegold, the state secretary in charge of competition policy at Germany’s economy ministry, pointed to Twitter’s abrupt suspension of journalists’ accounts and restrictions on the access to some links.
In a letter to two European Commissioners, Giegold called on the EU to launch an investigation and said the Commission should act to prevent what he called Twitter’s “anti-competitive behaviour”.
Twitter and the EU did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“General terms and conditions that change almost every hour, erratic justifications for extensive restrictions on links and the blocking of journalists threaten freedom of competition and pose a risk to freedom of expression, information and the press,” Giegold wrote on Twitter, while sharing his letter.
And Elon isn’t going to like this either:
German regulators are already pushing government institutions to stop posting announcements exclusively to privately-held platforms, touting alternatives like the fledgling decentralised social media network Mastodon.
According to the Commission’s new regulations on digital markets, it will take over the supervision of large platforms such as Facebook and Google, Giegold said.
“However, Twitter is not yet classified as a dominant digital platform, also because the company’s sales are still too low,” he said. “Nevertheless, Twitter exerts a great influence on shaping public opinion worldwide and also in Europe.”
The fact that the Germans are pushing Mastodon is significant. Germany is a big member of the EU bloc. And if they do something, others are likely to follow. And that will make Elon’s life even more miserable than it already is. Because that will drive eyeballs away from Twitter, and his behaviour will under much greater scrutiny by a bloc that has a history of lowering the boom on big companies. That’s not a place that I would want to be if I were Elon. But then, the only person to blame when it comes to Elon Musk being in this situation is Elon Musk.
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This entry was posted on December 22, 2022 at 8:55 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Twitter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.