The European Union is staring into a kind of digital abyss. In the space of a few days he has seen how the United States has dynamited the fit of American social networks on European soil. First it was the billionaire owner of X, Elon Muskwhich has frontally attacked several European leaders and is now trying to influence the upcoming German elections by promoting the far-right party on its platform Alternative for Germany. Then, in a surprising turn of events, Meta’s owner, Mark Zuckerberg, adopted Trumpist language to attack European “censorship” of his social network and announced the end of his human content verification program. It is an earthquake for the European digital panorama: Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, X… The enemy is too big, too powerfuland Europe has no relevant platform with which to confront it. Hundreds of millions of European users are controlled by secret algorithms from the United States. What can the European Union do to defend itself?
For the moment, the political response from Brussels has been lukewarm. The newly appointed High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas, has not made any mention of the attacks and interference by Musk or Zuckerberg. Neither does the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who is ill with pneumonia. The weight of such a serious situation has fallen on the spokespersons of the European Union, who have limited themselves to saying that the American tycoon has the right to express his opinion and that he will carefully look at the changes and concrete actions to examine them under the magnifying glass of the Law. of Digital Services (DSA).
Meta has reported the changes in writing to the European Commission this Wednesday, as required by European law, as this newspaper has learned. The end of human verifiers only affects the United Statesso the EU is not going to do anything about it under the DSA. However, in the notification, Zuckerberg’s company also warned that it was relaxing its rules against hate speech. Almost anything goes again on Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp. And that does clash head-on with European regulation. Brussels investigates the risk this poses to the European digital ecosystem.
An investigation has already been opened against X since December 2023 for the alleged violation of the legal requirements to be able to operate in Europe. Specifically, it is closely looked at whether it complies with EU obligations against the dissemination of illegal content; If the content control system “community notes” alerting of falsehoods is effective; or if the communication system is being distorted by allowing a verified user to be obtained simply by paying, which makes it easy to create fake accounts and spread hoaxes after payment.
Now, the team of more than a hundred people dedicated to these tasks in the Union, including lawyers and technologists, reviews hundreds of pages of documents that have been sent to you from the United States. There is no scheduled date to issue a resolution, which will then be sent to the political decision-making bodies of the Union. If X has broken the rules of the game, he faces a fine that can reach 6% of his global profits. Will the EU dare to go that far?
There are those who believe that it should have been done already. Take advantage of the opportunity before Musk arrived at the White House (actually, to an advisory body to the president) and abandon social network X en masse. That it is imperative that European and Spanish public officials and institutions stop using a platform with serious problems of spreading hoaxes and hate content. Many of the officials have already opened accounts in the most popular alternative at the moment, Bluesky: from Von der Leyen to Pedro Sánchez, passing through the Government ministers and the European commissioners. But for now, it’s more about establishing a base camp and duplicating content. Everyone is still on X, where political messages can go viral.
Technology assault on Europe
“We will work with President Trump to oppose governments around the world that go after American companies and censor Americans,” Zuckerberg said in a video this week. “Europe has a growing number of laws (… ) that make it difficult to create anything innovative“.
The tone and message is in line with that of X and President Trump. Everything indicates that a technology clash is brewing from Washington against Brussels, which has imposed fines and restrictions on other companies such as Google or Microsoft in recent years. Everything, in a framework in which everyone expects a tariff trade war of Trump against European products along with those from the rest of the world.
Legislation as defense
But there are more actors at play, and there are also suspicions of interference and unfriendly behavior among them. A formal investigation has been opened against the Chinese TikTok for alleged electoral risks under the DSA, in relation to the presidential elections in Romania on September 24. The first round was won by surprise by a little-known pro-Russian candidate who is suspected of used foreign money to flood the favorite social network of the youngest with political messages. The Supreme Court of Bucharest suspended the result, in an unprecedented move, based on information of interference from its intelligence services. Europe entrenches itself behind its digital legislation.
“We must protect our democracies from any type of foreign interference,” said, then yes, Ursula von der Leyen. “When we suspect such interference, especially during election periods, we must firmly state (…) Let it be abundantly clear: all platforms must be responsible for their actions.”
But this interference is already occurring at a higher level. Elon Musk, with more than 200 million followers, is one of the users that European legislation requires special monitoring.
The owner of X has called the chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz“incompetent fool” and has asked him to resign from his position. Scholz is the candidate of the Social Democrats for the general elections on February 23. This same Thursday, Musk posted on his social network an interview with Alice Weidel, the leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, which Musk considers “the only hope” for that country. What is the limit? The EU is working on it. EU officials are keeping a close eye on Musk’s behavior, analyzing his messages. Soon, the open case against X will be resolved. And then the frontal battle will begin.
