Musk’s X ‘deceives’ users with blue checks, EU charges
Breach of EU’s Digital Markets Act regulations could lead to hefty fines as high as 6 percent of total annual turnover
‘Blue check negatively affects users' ability to make informed decisions about account authenticity and content,’ Commission said
Updated 12 July 2024
AFP
BRUSSELS: Tech billionaire Elon Musk’s X platform is misleading users with its blue checkmarks for certified accounts, and is also violating EU content rules, Brussels said Friday, in a finding that could lead to hefty fines.
EU regulators are unhappy with the blue badge system under Musk’s ownership since anyone can now obtain it with a premium subscription, whereas before it was reserved for verified accounts including leaders, companies and journalists, after approval.
The formal warning against X is the first under the Digital Services Act (DSA), a sweeping law that forces digital companies do more to police content online. It follows a probe launched in December 2023.
X becomes the third company in as many weeks to face the European Union’s wrath for violating landmark new rules, after Brussels warned Apple and Meta to change their ways or risk massive fines — for breaches of a second law known as the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
Musk has overhauled the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, including changing its name, since purchasing it in October 2022.
But his plans for X have put him at odds with Brussels since the EU wants big tech to do more to protect users online and increase competition in the digital sphere.
Now the European Commission has told X of its preliminary view that it is “in breach of” the DSA, arguing that the social network “deceives” users with its new blue badge rules.
“Since anyone can subscribe to obtain such a ‘verified’ status, it negatively affects users’ ability to make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of the accounts and the content they interact with,” the commission said in a statement.
“There is evidence of motivated malicious actors abusing the ‘verified account’ to deceive users,” it added.
The commission also accused X of failing to comply with rules on advertising transparency — since it does “not provide a searchable and reliable” ad database — and failing to give researchers access to public data.
“X has now the right of defense — but if our view is confirmed we will impose fines and require significant changes,” the EU’s top digital official, Thierry Breton, said.
Fines under the DSA can go as high as six percent of a company’s total worldwide annual turnover and force it to make changes to address violations.
X will be able to examine the EU’s file and defend itself against Friday’s finding.
There is no time limit on how long an investigation may last.
EU regulators’ wide-ranging probe into X also continues to look into the spread of illegal content and the effectiveness of the platform’s efforts to combat disinformation, the commission said.
Under the DSA, X is one of 25 “very large” online platforms, including Facebook and TikTok, with more than 45 million monthly active users in the 27-country EU.
X is also in the EU’s crosshairs for a cut to content moderation resources. In May, the EU told X to hand over “detailed information and internal documents” and demanded more information about steps taken to mitigate risks from generative AI on elections.
There are currently other investigations under the DSA into Meta’s Facebook and Instagram as well as TikTok and AliExpress.
The DSA and the DMA are both part of the EU’s bolstered legal armory targeting big tech and EU regulators have stepped up enforcement of the laws since they came into force.
TikTok, bowing to EU, withdraws ‘addictive’ Lite rewards program
Lite rewards users with vouchers and gift cards for watching and liking videos
TikTok is also under investigation for its efforts to address the app's negative impact on young people
Updated 05 August 2024
Reuters
BRUSSELS: TikTok will permanently remove a feature in a spinoff app in France and Spain that rewards users for watching and liking videos, bowing to pressure from European regulators, the EU and the Chinese-owned company said Monday.
TikTok Lite arrived in France and Spain — the only EU countries where it is available — in April this year. Users aged 18 and over can earn points to exchange for goods like vouchers or gift cards through the app’s rewards program.
“We have obtained the permanent withdrawal of TikTok Lite Rewards program, which could have had very addictive consequences,” the EU’s internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, said.
TikTok Lite is a smaller version of the popular TikTok app, taking up less memory in a smartphone and made to perform over slower Internet connections.
TikTok made commitments to remove the program from the 27-country bloc and not to launch “any other program which would circumvent the withdrawal,” the European Commission said in a statement.
It is the first major victory for the European Union’s landmark Digital Services Act (DSA), a sweeping new law that requires digital firms operating in the bloc to effectively police online content to protect users from harm.
The commission kickstarted an investigation into the Lite app in April amid concerns over “addictive” effects, which forced TikTok to temporarily suspend the program.
The case is now closed after TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, made the binding commitments.
Any breach of the promises could lead to heavy fines under the DSA.
“We will carefully monitor TikTok’s compliance. Today’s decision also sends a clear message to the entire social media industry,” said commission executive vice president, Margrethe Vestager.
TikTok confirmed it had “now withdrawn” the rewards program.
“We always seek to engage constructively with the European Commission and other regulators. TikTok is pleased to have reached an amicable resolution,” a company spokesperson said.
TikTok is still under investigation after a separate probe launched in February amid concerns TikTok may not be doing enough to address negative impacts on young people.
TikTok is among 25 “very large” online platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, that must comply with the DSA’s stricter rules since August 2023.
The rules also expect digital retailers to act effectively to protect shoppers online.
The DSA gives the EU the power to hit companies with fines as high as six percent of their global annual revenues.
Repeat offenders can see their platforms blocked in the EU.
There are also ongoing investigations into X, formerly Twitter; Chinese online retailer AliExpress; and Meta over its Facebook and Instagram platforms.
TikTok also faces a litany of problems across the Atlantic.
It has filed a lawsuit to stop a US law that forces the app to be sold next year or face a US ban, claiming it violates First Amendment rights of free speech.
The United States upped the pressure on TikTok with a lawsuit last week, accusing the app of violating children’s privacy by collecting data about them without their parents’ permission when they use the platform.
TikTok said it disagreed with the allegations and that the company had safeguards to ensure age-appropriate experiences.
The Yazidi nightmare
Ten years after the genocide, their torment continues
Turkiye summons Instagram officials over platform freeze
This is not the first time that Turkish authorities have temporarily blocked access to social media sites, including Facebook, X and Wikipedia
Updated 05 August 2024
AFP
ISTANBUL: Turkiye’s government on Monday called officials from Instagram to a meeting, four days after blocking the social media platform for unspecified reasons.
Instagram, which has been suspended in Turkiye since Friday, has been accused by the authorities both of censorship and of failing to remove posts the authorities deemed offensive.
The freeze has harmed business for telecoms operators and vendors who sell goods via the platform.
Private television channel NTV said representatives in Turkiye of the platform, which is owned by Facebook parent Meta, would meet Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu at 1:00 p.m. (1000 GMT).
“We will meet them this afternoon. We hope they will do what’s necessary to respond to our demands. We’re hoping for positive developments,” Uraloglu said on X.
The minister said he had blocked access to Instagram because of “content-related offenses,” without giving details.
“Last week there was a meeting with representatives of the platform, in which we set out our views on respect for Turkish laws,” he continued.
For many Turkish businesses, Monday’s meeting cannot come soon enough.
An estimated 50-60 million of Turkiye’s 85 million inhabitants subscribe to Instagram, which serves as a platform for a wide range of commercial activities.
This is not the first time that Turkish authorities have temporarily blocked access to social media sites, including Facebook, X and Wikipedia.
Erdogan’s government is regularly accused of muzzling freedom of expression.
Saudi Media Forum partners up with International Broadcasting Convention
Agreement includes allocation of dedicated pavilion for Saudi Broadcasting Authority at the annual exhibition
Updated 04 August 2024
Arab News
RIYADH: The Saudi Media Forum has officially become the primary media partner of the International Broadcasting Convention — supported by the European Broadcasting Union — ahead of Riyadh’s Future of Media Exhibition, or FOMEX, in 2025.
The agreement includes the allocation of a dedicated pavilion for the Saudi Broadcasting Authority at the annual IBC Exhibition in Amsterdam. Moreover, IBC will actively promote the forum and its accompanying exhibition through its extensive European media network.
This collaboration aims to elevate awareness and engagement with these events across Europe, ensuring widespread visibility and maximizing global audience reach.
CEO of the Saudi Broadcasting Authority and President of the Saudi Media Forum Mohammed bin Fahd Al-Harthi stated that this collaboration represents a significant milestone in fostering cultural and knowledge exchange between the authority and leading global media platforms.
Al-Harthi also emphasized the forum’s role as a vibrant media hub for exchanging expertise, forming impactful partnerships, and attracting thousands of media professionals and enthusiasts annually.
Al-Harthi added: “Our responsibility continues to grow, driving us to intensify our efforts and deliver superior initiatives through our strategic partnerships with leading international exhibitions and markets. This collaboration builds on our past achievements, such as hosting the MIPCOM Market, marking its first participation outside France. Today, we proudly include IBC among our esteemed partners.”
Mike Crimp, CEO of IBC, said: “IBC has always championed industry innovation worldwide, and our media partnership with FOMEX aligns with our shared goals of advancing transformative technologies in every region and sector of media and entertainment. As the (media and entertainment) industry continues to evolve on a global scale, we are proud to partner with FOMEX, a media gathering that nurtures this growth and encourages creativity and cooperation.”
The IBC stands as one of the foremost global events dedicated to broadcasting, media, and technology.
The Saudi Broadcasting Authority is set to organize the Saudi Media Forum and FOMEX in 2025.
The previous edition of the forum successfully drew over 30,000 visitors, while FOMEX attracted nearly 300 exhibitors.
ANKARA: Instagram users in Turkiye woke up Sunday to find the social media network blocked for the third consecutive day, following censorship accusations against the US company from a high-ranking Turkish official.
The BTK communications authority announced on its website on Friday that the Meta-owned platform had been frozen, without giving any reason.
An official then referred to a regulation that allows “criminal content” to be blocked.
“Our country has values and sensitivities. Despite our warnings, they did not take care of criminal content,” Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu said on Friday.
“We blocked access. When they abide by our laws, we’ll lift the ban.”
The president’s communications director, Fahrettin Altun, accused Instagram on Wednesday of “preventing people from publishing messages of condolence for the martyr (Hamas leader Ismail) Haniyeh.”
“This is a very clear and obvious attempt at censure,” Altun said on social media platform X.
The social-democrat and nationalist opposition parties and the Ankara legal profession petitioned the courts on Friday evening for the freeze to be lifted.
According to Turkish media, 50 million of the country’s 85 million people have an Instagram account.
Spanish journalist or Russian spy? The mystery around Pablo González’s double life
Friends had organized protests in Spain demanding his release as Polish authorities kept him detained without charges
His inclusion from last week's US-Russia prisoner swap appears to confirm suspicions that he was a indeed Russian operative using his cover as a journalist
Updated 04 August 2024
AP
WARSAW, Poland: When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, reporters from around the world rushed to the Polish-Ukrainian border to cover an exodus of refugees fleeing Russian bombs.
Among them was Pablo González, a freelance journalist from Spain who had been based in Poland since 2019, working for Spanish news agency EFE, Voice of America and other outlets. Warsaw-based reporters knew him as an outgoing colleague who liked to drink beer and sing karaoke into the wee hours of the morning.
Two and a half years later, he was sent to Moscow as part of a prisoner swap, leaving behind both mysteries about who he really was and concerns about how Poland handled a case in which he was accused of being a Russian agent.
In the first days of the war, González provided stand-up reports to TV viewers in Spain against a backdrop of refugees arriving at the train station in the Polish border town of Przemysl.
But less than week into the war, Polish security agents entered the room he was staying in and arrested him. They accused him of “participating in foreign intelligence activities against Poland” and said he was an agent of the GRU, Russian military intelligence.
A man identified as Pablo González, a freelance Spanish journalist who has been based in Poland since 2019, second from left, with shaved head, listens to Russian President Vladimir Putin following the biggest prisoner swap between the US and Russia in post-Soviet history, upon their arrival at the Vnukuvo government airport outside Moscow on August 1, 2024. Gonzalez had another passport and another name: Pavel Rubtsov. (Sputnik, Kremlin Pool via AP)
Friends were astonished — and, as Poland held González without trial for months that turned into years, some grew skeptical and organized protests in Spain demanding his release. Authorities have never detailed the accusations.
But on Thursday evening, the burly 42-year-old with a shaved head and beard was welcomed home by President Vladimir Putin after being freed in the largest prisoner swap since the Soviet era.
His inclusion in the deal appears to confirm suspicions that González was a Russian operative using his cover as a journalist.
Born Pavel Rubtsov in 1982 in then-Soviet Moscow, González went to Spain with his Spanish mother at age 9, where he became a citizen and received the Spanish name of Pablo González Yagüe. He went into journalism, working for outlets Público, La Sexta and Gara, a Basque nationalist newspaper.
It’s not clear what led Poland to arrest him. The investigation remains classified and the spokesman for the secret services told The Associated Press that he could not say anything beyond what was in a brief statement. Poland is on high alert after a string of arrests of espionage suspects and sabotage, part of what the authorities view as hybrid warfare by Russia and Belarus against the West.
Polish security services said Poland included him in the deal due to the close Polish-American alliance and “common security interests.” In their statement, they said that “Pavel Rubtsov, a GRU officer arrested in Poland in 2022, (had been) carrying out intelligence tasks in Europe.”
The head of Britain’s MI6 agency, Sir Richard Moore, said at the Aspen Security Forum in 2022 that González was an “illegal” who was arrested in Poland after “masquerading as a Spanish journalist.”
“He was trying to go into Ukraine to be part of their destabilizing efforts there,” Moore said.
Another hint at his activities came from independent Russian outlet Agentstvo, which reported that in 2016 Rubtsov befriended and spied on Zhanna Nemtsova, the daughter of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was murdered in Moscow in 2015.
Poland-based journalists who knew González said he used his base in Poland to travel to former Soviet countries including Ukraine and Georgia. He had a license to operate a drone and used it to film Auschwitz-Birkenau from the air for coverage on the 75th anniversary of the death camp’s liberation in 2020.
Voice of America, a US-government funded organization, confirmed that he worked briefly for them, but they have since removed any of his work from their website.
“Pablo González contributed to a few VOA stories as a freelancer over a relatively short period of time starting in late 2020,” spokesperson Emily Webb said in reply to an emailed query. “As a freelancer who provided content to a number of media outlets, his services were arranged through a third-party company used by news organizations around the world.”
“At no time did he have any access to any VOA systems or VOA credentials,” Webb said. “As soon as VOA learned of the allegations, we removed his material.”
Because Poland’s justice system was politicized under a populist government that ruled in 2015-23, some activists worried about whether his rights were respected. Reporters Without Borders was among the groups that called for him to be put on trial or released.
The group stands by its position that he should not have been held that long without trial. “You are innocent until a trial proves you guilty,” Alfonso Bauluz, the head of the group’s office in Spain told AP on Friday. He expressed frustration at the silence around the case, and the fact that there will apparently not be a trial at all, saying Poland has not presented the evidence it has against him.
But the group also says it expects González to provide an explanation now that he is free.
Jaap Arriens, a Dutch video journalist based in Warsaw, hung out with the man he knew as Pablo in Warsaw and Kyiv, as well as in Przemysl shortly before his arrest.
Arriens described him as a friendly, funny man with a macho demeanor and a chest covered in tattoos that he once showed off in a bar.
González mostly fit in, but seemed better-off than the average freelance journalist. He always seemed to have the newest and most expensive phones and computers, working at the Poland-Ukraine border with the latest 14-inch MacBook Pro. He had plenty of money to spend in bars.
He recalled González once saying: “Life is good, life is almost too good.”
“And I thought: ‘Man, freelance life is never too good. What are you talking about?’ I don’t know any freelancer who talks like this.”
González, whose grandfather emigrated from Spain to the Soviet Union as a child during the Spanish Civil War, was known as a Basque nationalist with ties to the region’s independence movement.
Russia is suspected of supporting separatist movements in Spain and elsewhere in an effort to destabilize Europe.
González’ wife in Spain had been advocating on his behalf during his detention in Poland, even though they were not living together at the time of his arrest.
Over the past years, the suspect’s supporters ran an account on Twitter, now X, to advocate for his release.
When he was sent to Moscow on Thursday, the @FreePabloGonzález account tweeted: “This is our last tweet: Pablo is finally free. Endless thanks to all.”
Those who have followed the case are now awaiting González’s next moves.
He has Spanish citizenship — and the right to return to the European Union. His wife was quoted in Spanish media saying she hopes he can return to Spain.
