Elon Musk appeared to endorse a key European law regulating social media on Monday when he appeared in a video with Thierry Breton, a top EU commissioner and digital regulator.
In the video, Breton said he met with Musk to explain the finer points of the Digital Services Act, a forthcoming law that imposes higher content moderation standards on tech platforms.
Asked by Breton whether he felt the DSA “fits pretty well” with how Musk believes platforms should be run, the billionaire Tesla (TSLA) CEO and prospective owner of Twitter said it is “exactly aligned with [what] we’re thinking.”
“Very much agree with — it’s been a great discussion and I really think that — I agree with everything you said, really, I think we’re very much of the same mind and, you know, just anything that my companies can do that would be beneficial to Europe, we want do that,” Musk said in the video.
Musk later replied to Breton’s tweet containing the video, reiterating his positive reflections on the exchange.
“Great meeting! We are very much on the same page,” Musk tweeted.
Despite expressing support for Europe’s new legal requirements, Musk did not appear to be making an expanded new commitment to content moderation. Musk has previously said he wants to open up “free speech” on Twitter by easing its enforcement of content moderation policies, but has also said he plans for the platform to abide by local laws and regulations on speech — and that if citizens wish to apply different rules to platforms, they can do so via their legislatures.
Some experts have warned that such a narrow approach to content moderation — doing just enough to avoid breaking local speech laws but going no further to moderate otherwise objectionable content — could give a boost to authoritarian regimes with a track record of outlawing critical speech.
