The times of the Wild West seem to be coming to an end for Silicon Valley corporations in the EU. Internal Market Commissioner Breton announces a stress test at Twitter headquarters, Meta has been fined €670 million for data protection breaches since September alone.
The recording lasts only five seconds, but it has great symbolic power: the cell phone camera of Thierry Breton’s communication adviser in the internal market commissioner’s office pans from the screen on which Elon Musks looks serious and a little worried, to Breton himself, that’s the head of Twitter and Tesla obviously reading the riot act. During the video conference on Wednesday night, he threatened Musk with a ban on remaining active in the EU, reports the Financial Times, citing participants in the meeting. That draconian measure certainly resonates in the commissioner’s press release (which he published, somewhat anti-Musk, on the alternative Twitter Mastodon). He was happy that Musk had announced that he would prepare Twitter for the requirements of the EU Digital Services Act (DSA). “But let’s be clear that there is still enormous work to be done, as Twitter needs to implement transparent user rules, significantly increase moderation and strengthen freedom of expression, vigorously combat misinformation and limit targeted advertising.” test at Twitter HQ, “which will allow Twitter to achieve compliance ahead of legal deadlines and prepare for a full, independent review as required by the DSA.”
That should have been. For now, Musk, who otherwise doesn’t make a murder pit out of his heart, owed a backlash. In general, he must have eaten a mountain of chalk these days. He recently fired at Apple quite rudely and earlier this week accused the computer company of having stopped advertising on Twitter largely because it “hates free speech”. he thanked Apple CEO Tim Cook on Thursday night for the tour of “Apple’s beautiful headquarters”.