1 of 2 | X CEO Linda Yaccarino on Thursday said that X had taken action to combat disinformation on the platform amid the war between Israel and Hamas. File Photo by James Atoa/UPI | License Photo
X CEO Linda Yaccarino responded to the European Commission Wednesday after the global body gave the company 24 hours to respond to demands for bolder actions to curtail disinformation about the ongoing war in the Middle East.
Yaccarino sent an email to the global body one day after Thierry Breton, the EU commissioner for the newly enacted Digital Services Act, warned X owner Elon Musk and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg that they would face massive fines unless they complied with the law, which was designed to crack down on misinformation in the 27-member bloc. Advertisement
Musk faced extreme pressure to respond to Breton as his social media company, formerly known as Twitter, would have faced immediate fines as high as 6% of its revenue if he didn’t.
The full letter to Breton was posted early Thursday to the official page of X’s Global Government Affairs team. Advertisement
In the email, Yaccarino said the company was committed to fully cooperating with the laws of the European Union, and had already removed hundreds of Hamas-affiliated accounts from the platform.
The company said it was working with several global partners to identify and remove other terrorist content that was circulating on the social media site, she said.
“Since the terrorist attack on Israel, we have taken action to remove or label tens of thousands of pieces of content, while Community Notes are visible on thousands of posts, generating millions of impressions,” Yaccarino wrote. “There is no place on X for terrorist organizations or violent extremist groups and we continue to remove such accounts in real time.”
In Wednesday’s response to Breton, Yaccarino said X has taken steps to redistribute resources and refocus internal teams, and that it was “actively working” to address “operational needs” to limit the spread of incendiary content on the platform as the conflict in Israel entered its sixth day.
The statement said law enforcement officials alerted the company to take down more than 80 harmful posts from the war zone that slipped through the cracks on the platform after Hamas launched the surprise attack over the weekend. Advertisement
The letter outlines a number of standing policies that demonstrate the platform’s stance against violent and hateful commentary as well as graphic imagery and adult content.
“For the avoidance of doubt, we strictly adhere to our policies concerning illegal content and we continue to remove illegal content, including terrorist content, from our platform,” Yaccarino said.
The letter also details several policy enforcement efforts that were put in place amid the latest Middle East war, including a new internal crisis management team and a more robust system for reporting rule violations.
The latest controversy for X comes a month after the social media titan was accused of violating its own moderation policies, with the Center for Countering Digital Hate accusing the platform of allowing extreme content to remain up despite official reports to remove them
The digital watchdog, which monitors hate speech, misinformation and other harmful online content, issued a report saying X failed to address about 86% of the 300 incendiary posts that were flagged in early September for promoting hate and extolling white supremacy, neo-Nazism, antisemitism, and racism against Black people.
