SAN FRANCISCO, USA: Twitter owner Elon Musk on Friday said he had reinstated certain banned accounts on his site, but said no decision was made on welcoming back former US president Donald Trump.
Musk tweeted that the accounts of comedian Kathy Griffin, psychologist Jordan Peterson and conservative parody site Babylon Bee “have been reinstated,” but that the “Trump decision has not yet been made.”
Twitter users have been watching closely to see whether Musk will reinstate Trump, banned for inciting last year’s attack on the Capitol by a mob seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
The announcement was made just moments before US Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed an independent prosecutor to oversee the criminal investigations into Trump, three days after the former president announced a new run for the White House in 2024.
Griffin, who has two million Twitter followers, was the most recently banned account after she switched her username to Elon Musk, taking advantage of the website’s new relaxed rules under the billionaire.
Musk has described himself as a “free speech absolutist,” and the South African billionaire was harangued online for the ban on Griffin and other accounts that impersonated him.
Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson was suspended from Twitter in June, before Musk’s ownership, following a post about transgender actor Elliot Page that broke the site’s rules on hateful conduct.
Peterson had often made comments against the rights of transgender people and was asked by Twitter to remove the post on Page.
Musk made the announcement as he indicated a new direction for content moderation on the site.
“New Twitter policy is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach,” Musk tweeted on Friday.
While not being totally removed from the site, Musk said that “negative/hate tweets” will be “max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter.”
“You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of Internet,” he added.
Musk reinstates some banned Twitter accounts, not Trump
https://arab.news/n7j8e
Musk reinstates some banned Twitter accounts, not Trump
- Musk tweeted that the accounts of comedian Kathy Griffin, psychologist Jordan Peterson and conservative parody site Babylon Bee "have been reinstated"
- The "Trump decision has not yet been made"
EU warns Meta it must open up WhatsApp to rival AI chatbots
- The EU executive on Monday told Meta to give rival chatbots access to WhatsApp after an antitrust probe found the US giant to be in breach of the bloc’s competition rules
BRUSSELS: The EU executive on Monday told Meta to give rival chatbots access to WhatsApp after an antitrust probe found the US giant to be in breach of the bloc’s competition rules.
The European Commission said a change in Meta’s terms had “effectively” barred third-party artificial intelligence assistants from connecting to customers via the messaging platform since January.
Competition chief Teresa Ribera said the EU was “considering quickly imposing interim measures on Meta, to preserve access for competitors to WhatsApp while the investigation is ongoing, and avoid Meta’s new policy irreparably harming competition in Europe.”
The EU executive, which is in charge of competition policy, sent Meta a warning known as a “statement of objections,” a formal step in antitrust probes.
Meta now has a chance to reply and defend itself. Monday’s step does not prejudge the outcome of the probe, the commission said.
The tech giant rejected the commission’s preliminary findings.
“The facts are that there is no reason for the EU to intervene,” a Meta spokesperson said.
“There are many AI options and people can use them from app stores, operating systems, devices, websites, and industry partnerships. The commission’s logic incorrectly assumes the WhatsApp Business API is a key distribution channel for these chatbots,” the spokesperson said.
Opened in December, the EU probe marks the latest attempt by the 27-nation bloc to rein in Big Tech, many of whom are based in the United States, in the face of strong pushback by the government of US President Donald Trump.
- Meta in the firing line -
The investigation covers the European Economic Area (EEA), made up of the bloc’s 27 states, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway — with the exception of Italy, which opened a separate investigation into Meta in July.
The commission said that Meta is “likely to be dominant” in the EEA for consumer messaging apps, notably through WhatsApp, and accused Meta of “abusing this dominant position by refusing access” to competitors.
“We cannot allow dominant tech companies to illegally leverage their dominance to give themselves an unfair advantage,” Ribera said in a statement.
There is no legal deadline for concluding an antitrust probe.
Meta is already under investigation under different laws in the European Union.
EU regulators are also investigating its platforms Facebook and Instagram over fears they are not doing enough to tackle the risk of social media addiction for children.
The company also appealed a 200-million-euro fine imposed last year by the commission under the online competition law, the Digital Markets Act.
That case focused on its policy asking users to choose between an ad-free subscription and a free, ad-supported service, and Brussels and Meta remain in discussions over finding an alternative that would address the EU’s concerns.
