The pressure on Twitter owner Elon Musk is increasing. The US regulator FTC is “intensifying” an ongoing investigation into Twitter. The European Commission has also informed the billionaire that he must hire more employees to moderate Twitter, The New York Times and the Financial Times report based on sources.
The US investigation revolves around whether Twitter has “adequate resources” to ensure the privacy of its users after the thousands of layoffs and other budget cuts.
Among others, the FTC wants to hear Musk himself in the investigation, along with former employees who have dealt with privacy and security. The regulator wants to know, among other things, how the management structure at the company works and what Musk’s role is exactly. With the acquisition of Twitter, Musk became the owner and CEO of the company.
Tightened supervision
He himself sees the latter as a temporary role. In December it still seemed that he would soon step down as CEO, although he would still have the last word on decisions. A successor is not yet in the picture and Musk recently said that it will probably take until the end of the year to find one.
Twitter is under increased scrutiny because of agreements the company made with the FTC in 2011. This agreement was extended last year. The tech company must conduct regular security tests and keep the FTC informed about how it handles sensitive data. Last year, the regulator fined the platform $ 150 million. Musk did not own Twitter at the time.
Brussels wants more moderators
In Brussels, there are concerns about whether Twitter can meet its moderation obligations. This concerns both the removal or not of messages and fact checks, something that Twitter is not doing at the moment. Musk should hire more people for this, according to the European Commission.
Musk has recently fired numerous so-called moderators; he wants to cut costs as much as possible in order to get the company into the black quickly. It is unclear how many additional employees Musk should hire according to the EU. The number of staff still performing moderation tasks is also unclear.
European Commissioner Breton for the Internal Market said he expects Twitter to hire extra people to comply with new EU legislation. In a response to the Financial Times, Twitter said it also intends to fully comply with that legislation. The company speaks of “productive talks” with the EU.
In January, Musk told Breton that he wants to rely more on automatic systems for moderation in the future.
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