X (formerly Twitter) CEO Linda Yaccarino reported that the social network's expert workers have identified and removed hundreds of accounts linked to the Hamas terrorist group since the start of the war against Israel.
Yaccarino explained this Thursday that the platform brought together "a leadership group" that is evaluating and taking measures to combat illegal content, which has led the company to label content and remove users.
“So far, since the start of the conflict, X has identified and removed hundreds of Hamas-affiliated accounts from the platform. There is no place on X for terrorist organizations or violent extremist groups and we continue to remove such accounts in real time, including proactive efforts," said the CEO, asserting that company is "proportionately and effectively assessing and addressing identified fake and manipulated content during this constantly evolving and shifting crisis."
Everyday we're reminded of our global responsibility to protect the public conversation by ensuring everyone has access to real-time information and safeguarding the platform for all our users. In response to the recent terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas, we've redistributed… https://t.co/VR2rsK0J9K
— Linda Yaccarino (@lindayaX) October 12, 2023
The information from the CEO comeed in response to the 24-hour ultimatum given by the Commissioner for the Internal Market of the European Union Thierry Breton to Elon Musk to clarify the social network's efforts to address the war between Israel and Hamas under the EU's strict new digital rules. This is because Breton said he had indications that X was being used to spread illegal content and misinformation.
“Public media and civil society organizations widely report cases of false and manipulated images and facts circulating on their platform in the EU, such as reused old images from unrelated armed conflicts or military images that actually come from video games . This appears to be patently false or misleading information,” Breton’s letter stated.
We have received the reply by @X to our letter raising concerns about the spread of illegal content and disinformation related to the Hamas terrorist attack against Israel.
The #DSA enforcement team will analyse the reply and decide on next steps.
— Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton) October 12, 2023
X is ‘open source and transparent’
Although Yaccarino responded with a formal letter about the efforts that X is carrying out to comply with EU laws, Elon Musk also responded to Breton reiterating that the policy of his social network “is for everything to be open source and transparent.”
Our policy is that everything is open source and transparent, an approach that I know the EU supports.
Please list the violations you allude to on 𝕏, so that that the public can see them.
Merci beaucoup.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 10, 2023
