EU official Thierry Breton wasted little time before warning Elon Musk, then new owner of Twitter, that he would come under close scrutiny from EU regulators.
Musk tweeted on Oct. 27, the day he got on the social media platform, that “the bird has been released” — a sign that he intends to relax Twitter’s content vetting policies. Breton tweeted the next day: “In Europe, The bird will fly according to our rules. “
Musk is advised to take Woods at his word. The European Union has implemented and enacted rules governing online content that are stricter than anything in the United States. The EU also has policies on employment rights that are more favorable to workers than Musk’s companies would have had to adhere to here.
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There is still huge work ahead.
EU official Thierry Breton has warned Elon Musk that Twitter must abide by its rules
In at least one case, Twitter was forced to overturn the firing of a European executive because its termination notice did not comply with EU standards.
In many respects, Musk has forced changes to Twitter that likely run counter to EU policies targeting social media and other businesses in the digital space. His haste to lay off up to half of the platform’s workforce reportedly eviscerated content moderation teams, affecting a responsibility the EU takes very seriously.
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The two most important EU rules related to Twitter are the General Data Protection Regulation, or General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which was enacted in 2018, and the Digital Services Act, or DSA, which was enacted this year and came into full force no later than January. 2024.
Violations of EU rules could result in Twitter being banned from the European market or facing severe financial penalties. Although Twitter’s user base is not the largest among social media platforms in Europe, its users in the European Union, taken together, rank as the platform’s third largest user base in the world, after the United States and Japan.
GDPR enforces strict standards regarding the protection and use of personal information that users transmit to companies. This includes names, email addresses, credit card information, race and ethnic background, political and religious beliefs, and genetic and biometric data.
Recently on November 28, the EU regulators imposed a $275 million fine on Meta platformsFacebook Inc., the parent company of Facebook, was blamed for a 2021 data breach that allowed personal data of 530 million Facebook users to be leaked online.
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DSA is more comprehensive. It requires online businesses to adhere to strict standards that govern the screening and removal of illegal or misleading content. Companies are required to provide periodic disclosures about how they curate content and how they train and support content moderators.
Advertising on social media is also strictly regulated, with targeting based on certain protected categories and deceptive ad formats banned.
Companies rated on very large online platforms, a category that certainly includes Twitter, will face more scrutiny.
They will be subject to regular independent audits of their policies and procedures to “mitigate risks such as misinformation or election manipulation, cyber violence against women, or harm to minors online,” among others, says the European Union.
Violations can result in penalties including bans from the European market and fines of up to 6% of the company’s global revenue.
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Even before Musk took over Twitter, his recklessness in policymaking infuriated EU officials in Brussels, the EU’s headquarters, and Ireland, which is Twitter’s main EU regulator over the company’s nominal European seat in that country.
As early as late April Breton, the EU’s commissioner for the internal market and chief regulator of digital activities, warned that the company would have to fulfill “obligations imposed by the EU, including moderation, open algorithms, freedom of expression, transparency in rules and [and] Commitments to comply with our Hate Speech and Revenge Pornography rules [and] harassment,” The Financial Times reported.
Britton followed up on a video call with Musk on Wednesday. in Read the call he posted early ThursdayHe was tactful but strict about Twitter’s responsibilities under the law.
Breton said he was “pleased to hear” that Musk considers DSA “a sensible approach to implement on a global basis.” But he warned that “there is still huge work ahead. Twitter will have to implement transparent user policies, significantly strengthen content moderation and protect freedom of expression, resolutely tackle disinformation, and limit targeted advertising.”
Some of the practices and policies Musk has already implemented that would violate the law’s specification, as explained by Britton. Online platforms will have to “strengthen content moderation” — that is, the ability to block hateful, offensive content, disinformation, and disinformation.
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Britton said the platforms would have to “label hoaxes and misinformation in cooperation with fact-checkers”. Recently, on November 23, Twitter announced that it will do so No longer enforces the COVID disinformation policy It has been in effect in some form since April 2020. This appears to breach an EU rule on fact-checking.
under the old policyTwitter was committed to removing posts promoting ineffective or harmful treatments for COVID, such as taking bleach or taking drugs such as ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine. Questioned the safety or effectiveness of COVID vaccines or questioning practices like masking and social distancing.
As of September 2022, Twitter said, it has suspended more than 11,000 accounts and removed nearly 98,000 tweets for policy violations. Neither Musk nor Twitter explained why the policy was dropped.
Breton also said that content moderation policies should be “applied consistently and on the basis of objective criteria (eg, not through a survey)”.
It’s hard to imagine a more direct shot at the musket. He conducted a Twitter poll about whether to restore the account of former President Trump, whose Twitter access was revoked after he posted tweets that were interpreted as inciting further violence following the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection. Musk restored access to Trump on Nov. 18 after showing Informal poll that users prefer the action.
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On November 24, Musk announced that he would reinstate most of the banned accounts after a user poll endorsed a “general amnesty”.
Before that, Musk had made personal decisions to restore some banned right-wing accounts, including that of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. A real wellspring of misinformation and harmful speech. Greene immediately used her restored account for Throwing a homophobic slur California Senator Scott Weiner (D-San Francisco), who is gay, called him a “communist nanny.”
Musk had initially promised to create an independent review board to make rulings on banning or suspending spam accounts, but later backtracked.
Musk may already have been skating on thin ice with EU regulators. Widespread dismissals after he took office and resignations of senior staff raised questions among Irish regulators about whether Twitter should be seen as the home of Ireland in Europe.
This rating made the Irish regulatory agencies Twitter “one stop” to regulatory issues in the European Union. If the company lost this designation, it would be subject to oversight by all 27 EU member states, creating a regulatory morass that would be exceptionally complex and expensive.
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Musk learned the hard way that sparse hiring practices don’t fly in Europe. In mid-November, the Irish Supreme Court She prevented Sinead McSweeney from being shotTwitter’s global vice president of public policy, based in Dublin.
McSweeney confirmed that she had been banned from Twitter’s technical systems and office in Dublin after she failed to respond to Musk’s sweeping email on November 16 ordering all workers to either agree to continue in an “extremely complex” work environment or accept a three-month cutoff.
She said she did not respond because the severance package offered did not meet her contractual rights. Although she did not quit, she said, she was treated as if she was no longer a Twitter handler.
The Irish court blocked Twitter from firing McSweeney and also prevented the company from indicating to any third party that its employment status had changed.
It is impossible to predict how Musk’s relations with European regulators will develop. a The statement has been published A November 30 post on Twitter confirmed that its moderation policies haven’t changed. The platform’s revocation of its coronavirus misinformation policy, as well as the language in the statement itself, showed that the promise was bogus.
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According to the statement, “its approach to policy enforcement will depend more on decreasing the amplification of offending content: freedom of expression, but not freedom of access.”
It indicates that questionable or harmful content will be allowed on the platform, perhaps under circumstances that make it more difficult to find. But such a policy is fundamentally different from Twitter’s previous efforts to actively or proactively block such content. Whether it will comply with EU requirements that online platforms “strengthen content moderation” is questionable.
US regulators have been overly indulgent of Musk and his tendency to flout the rules. Whether the SEC will punish him for his alleged breach of the law by not disclosing his first Twitter stock purchases this year is still up in the air.
Car regulators were in California Forgiving without excuse Towards rolling out Tesla’s autonomous driving system, Musk’s electric car company is ruminating, by consistently failing to bring Tesla to the same standards of self-driving technology as it does other robot car developers.
Unlike competitors like Waymo, Cruise, Argo, and Zoox, Tesla allows its software to be tested on public roads by untrained drivers, which presents a clear danger to other motorists and pedestrians.
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In March 2020, Tesla’s factory in Fremont, California, continued to operate despite an order from Alameda County authorities to close it in compliance with anti-pandemic policies. There were no legal consequences: boycott to retreat, allowing the Fremont plant to continue operating. The factory appeared as Local hot spot of COVID infection, with more than 400 cases recorded between May and December 2020 among its 10,000 workers.
Will the European Union be tolerant? Mostly not. Speculation in Europe is that the EU intends to make Twitter a test case for its content moderation rules, suggesting it will not back down if it expects its rules to have any credibility. Musk will not have the flexibility he has in the US to choose which regulations he would like to respect.
The EU must show other regulators, in the US and abroad, that the way to limit Musk’s will is to hold out and force him to pay for violating their rules. This approach is long overdue.
Laser, 30, is a licensed clinical social worker in Chicago who runs his own center Special training, created TikTok less than a month ago to post videos about the kinds of things he focuses on with his customers: self-esteem, body image, anxiety. Then, last week, he got a comment on one of his videos.
“At that moment, my blood was hot,” Laser told BuzzFeed News.
Laser, who now has nearly 31,000 followers on the app, said he never thought of a different reading of the words when he did the math, and in his job he sees the word “therapist” so often that he never thought of another interpretation.
Several commenters have pointed out that it looks like a joke in a Saturday Night Live Sitcom “Celebrity Jeopardy” featuring Darrell Hammond as Sean Connery:
“I will never put rent on my credit card,” said M, a 26-year-old in Boston. She’s been trying to pay off the credit card debt she’s had for about a year She asked that her full name not be used. “I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable—or, to be honest, trust myself—to try this tactic.” She lives paycheck to paycheck and fears she will forget to pay her card for a month or fail to set aside that portion of her paycheck if her rent goes to a credit card. “It looks like a rabbit hole waiting for me to fall into,” M said.
“Credit card companies make money off people who don’t pay their bills on time,” said Lamarre. “Credit card people, like me and my friends, are at least getting rewards for using the cards responsibly. … It’s not something that I control, that people aren’t responsible for, but I try to tell people how to work within the system and not be a victim of it.” .
the Average credit card balance Among Gen Z consumers last year it was $2,854, according to Experian. LendingTree’s Channel predicts that Gen Z consumers’ credit card use will increase as they age, as did millennial consumers. Many of them are still not fully financially independent. When the pause on student loan payments is lifted, and more Gen Z adults are coming out restrictions Which makes it difficult for people under the age of 21 to get a credit card, their dependence on this type of debt is likely to rise.
As credit card companies develop new incentives, the channel has encouraged caution. “I certainly wouldn’t invite Gen Z, or anyone else, to come out and say, ‘Gee whiz, I have to start making my car payments with my credit card now, because I’m going to get more points,’” the channel said. For most people.” ●
Jesse Thorne has built a huge audience with his Maximum Fun podcast. His NPR interview show, “Bullseye With Jesse Thorn,” has had guests including Jonathan Majors, Tom Hanks, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
But over the past few years, he said, running the business at MacArthur Park has driven him to the breaking point. The father of three struggled to balance his work life with his home life. He suffered from split migraines.
“You have to take a step back from this,” his wife, Teresa, told him at the dining room table in 2018. “I’m afraid you will die.”
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Then things got worse. Pandemic struck. The podcast industry has been consolidated by big tech companies like Amazon and Amazon.com Spotify Startups picked up In the field of audio and advertising technology.
Amidst personal and industrial turmoil, Thorne was faced with a choice: maintaining the status quo, which was unsustainable; Or sell a company that was not doing well.
“I’ve been trying to circle around how I can undo this stuff without selling out my fellow performers or friends,” said Thorne, 41.
Instead, he chose a third option: making the company an employee-owned operation.
On Monday, Thorne — who has co-owned Maximum Fun with his wife since founding it in 2011 — announced that his company would become a labor co-op, a business model new to the podcasting industry but one that has been tried by several small businesses including bakeries and pizzerias. The company said the ownership would be shared equally by at least 16 people, including Thorne.
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Thorne said the process of turning Maximum Fun into a co-op took about a year and a half.
Thorne said he would receive an advance and a percentage of the company’s revenue for a limited number of years. The company obtains a loan from the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund.
Employees choose to become owners in the co-op by paying hundreds of dollars, which go into a trust, which they take back with interest when they leave the company. Workers’ owners are also entitled to vote on the company’s board of directors. The new board oversees the management structure, which is expected to remain the same, Thorne said.
Thorne declined to divulge more specific details about the financial terms of the deal, or how much money he would get from the purchase. He said the amount he gets is much less than he would have if he sold it to another company.
Several companies have expressed interest in buying Maximum Fun—a large radio company, mid-sized media company and television company—but Thorn declined to be named.
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Selling would have presented its own problems. Thorne was worried about layoffs in areas such as bookkeeping under new ownership.
Eventually, Thorne began considering alternatives, which led him to the Oakland-based Equity Project, a non-profit organization that helps companies transition to employee ownership.
“Ultimately, this is the way to do it that won’t ruin everything and allow the company to be owned and operated by people who I trust are doing it for the same reasons I was,” Thorne said.
Other businesses also operated as worker-owned co-ops include Atwater Village Proof Bakeries. In recent years, companies, including Great Lakes Brewing Co. and Taylor Guitars, transferring ownership to workers through what is known as an employee stock ownership plan.
“The advantages of employee ownership is that you can elicit greater dedication from the company’s employees,” said Alec Levinson, senior research fellow at the USC Marshall School of Business’ Center for Effective Organizations. “They really feel like it’s theirs.”
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Thorne said he never imagined how big his company would grow.
He started podcasting as a college student and turned to the format after he couldn’t find traditional media jobs. Thorne later became the youngest national host on public radio when his show, “The Sound of Young America”, was syndicated by Public Radio International. The name of the show was changed to “Bullseye” in 2012, and it has been distributed by NPR since 2013.
On “Bullseye With Jesse Thorn”, Thorn interviews innovators and cultural icons including actor Eugene Levy, rap group the Little Brothers, and music artist “Werd Al” Yankovic. The tone of the interviews is conversational and personal, like the Millennium version of “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross.
In the early days of his company, Thorne said he was focused solely on helping pay the rent. Today, Maximum Fun generates millions of dollars in revenue each year, with 37 shows and 24employees. Financial details have not been disclosed.
About 70% of the company’s revenue comes from membership, Thorne said, with the remaining amount coming from advertising and live events.
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He said the company is profitable. But it never aspired to dominate the podcast space or put exclusive programming behind a paywall. The podcasts associated with Maximum Fun are owned by the creator and are widely available on multiple platforms. “Bullseye” is broadcast on public radio stations including WNYC in New York and WBEZ in Chicago.
“We weren’t in this to grab market share, build and scale and lose money until we dominated our opponents,” Thorne said.
The podcast industry has gone through a head-turning cycle over the past few years.
For example, in 2019 Spotify announced its plans to Increase footprint into podcasting through acquisitions, fundamentally changing a landscape that was previously a fragmented market with many independent podcast production companies. Over the years, Spotify has bought podcast studios parrot And ringer And signed deals with high-profile celebrities including the company of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Archewelto.
But this year, Spotify has been under pressure to cut costs. In January, the CEO of Spotify announced that the company would do so layoffs 6% of its staff and CEO Dawn Ostroff, one of the main architects of podcast strategy, was departing.
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“There was a lot of speculative money in podcasting and it sort of led like hiccups in the ad market, to all these layoffs,” Thorne said.
Now, there are ramifications for the many companies that have poured resources into the space.
“There was just no way all these people who knew nothing about audio production, spending all that money so big, could sustain their operation,” Thorne said. “They were all mainly gamblers. They were all spending other people’s money hoping to get lucky.”
Despite the changes, Thorne said he believes the podcast audience continues to grow and Maximum Fun is in a good position. Even in today’s market, he said, there are small to mid-sized TV production companies that are thriving, and his company continues to produce great value content.
“Ultimately, we were making something that was intended to be really valuable to the people who consume it, and if we did that, there are a lot of ways we could make money,” Thorne said. “It has to be a certain number of people, but it doesn’t have to be an infinite number of people.”
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