Elon Musk and the European Union have disagreed over the former’s use of more volunteers and artificial intelligence to help regulate content on the Twitter platform, according to four people familiar with the matter.
Elon Musk has been told to hire more human reviewers and fact-checkers to review posts, the people said. Elon Musk has previously laid off more than half of Twitter’s 7,500 employees, including all of the trust and security teams in some offices while seeking cheaper ways to monitor tweets.
Twitter currently uses a combination of human review and artificial intelligence technology to detect and review harmful content, much as other social media platforms do. However, unlike Facebook and Instagram, Twitter does not employ fact-checkers.
Twitter also uses volunteer reviewers to review content for a feature called “Community Notes” to address the proliferation of misinformation on the platform, but the tool is not used to address illegal content.
The sources also said Elon Musk told European Commission Commissioner Thierry Breton in January that he would lean more heavily on its artificial intelligence process. Breton suggested that while Twitter itself should come up with the best way to regulate the site, he expected the company to hire more staff to comply with the Digital Services Act (DSA), the people said.
In a statement sent to the Financial Times, Twitter said, “We intend to be fully compliant with the Digital Services Act (DSA) and have had several productive discussions with EU officials about our efforts in this regard.”
The company added: “We will continue to use a combination of technology and expert personnel to proactively detect and remove illegal content, and the community notes will enable people to learn more about potential misinformation in an informative, transparent and trustworthy way.”
The DSA is landmark legislation that will force big tech groups to monitor their sites for illegal content. Major platforms, including Twitter, must fully comply by September of this year at the latest. Violators will face fines of up to 6 percent of global turnover. Elon Musk told Breton that hiring will take time, but staff will be in place this year to comply with the DSA.
