- Linda Yaccarino faced a particularly tough interview at Code Conference after being blindsided by a last-minute interview with ex-Twitter head Yoel Roth.
- Meanwhile, the European Commission released a report which labeled Twitter/X as one of the biggest sources of misinformation and disinformation online.
- The Commission told all platforms that more needs to be done to combat misinformation.
Wednesday was a rough day for X, formerly Twitter. Not only did Linda Yaccarino face a rather tough interview, the European Union slammed the platform for allowing misinformation to fester.
Let’s start with the interview. The X chief executive officer was the headline interview at Code Conference hosted by Vox Media this week. The interview was conducted by CNBC’s Julia Boorstin who didn’t hold back the tough questions but the air was tense given that former head of Trust and Safety at Twitter, Yoel Roth had been interviewed moments before.
While Yaccarino highlights some wins such as 90 percent of the top 100 advertisers (so 90 advertisers then) returning to the platform and currently daily active users being between 200 and 250 million. The CEO also said that X would be profitable in 2024.
However, the CEO went on to dodge a direct question about X becoming entirely subscription-based. Of course, she could be unaware of this potential change but that’s not exactly a great look for the CEO.
It was a rather terse interview and it didn’t win Yaccarino or X much confidence aside from the few Premium subscribers who believe X can do no wrong.
While that car crash was happening, the European Commission was releasing its Code of Practice on Disinformation report [PDF]. The study was conducted by TrustLab and analysed the sources and prevalence of disinformation on social media platforms in Poland, Slovakia and Spain. The social media platforms analysed include:
- Facebook,
- Instagram,
- LinkedIn,
- TikTok,
- Twitter,
- YouTube.
The crux of the report is that all social media platforms need to do more to address the spread of misinformation and disinformation especially as European countries arrive at elections. While X/Twitter isn’t a signatory to the code, Musk pulled out earlier this year, the report did still include it as the study began before Musk took ownership.
Despite its abandonment of the code, Twitter was found to have the highest ratio of misinformation and disinformation posts. Worse still, engagement on misinformation and disinformation posts is higher than engagements on posts without this content.
“The pilot also showed that disinformation actors were found to have significantly more followers than their non-disinformation counterparts and tend to have joined the platform more recently than non-disinformation users,” European Commission VP for Values and Transparency Věra Jourová said in a statement.
The report analysed 6 155 social media posts and 4 460 accounts across the dix platforms mentioned earlier. On Twitter, 43 percent of the posts studied were classified as misinformation.
Worse still, Twitter had the highest discoverability for misinformation while YouTube had the lowest.
While Musk has echoed that X is about freedom of speech not freedom of reach, it appears as if, according to this study at least, that isn’t the case.
Coupled with reports that X is still a haven for racism and extremist content with very little being removed, the European Commission isn’t a fan of the platform.
“Mr Musk knows he is not off the hook by leaving the code of practice,” Jourová said according to The Guardian. “There are obligations under the hard law. So my message for Twitter/X is you have to comply. We will be watching what you do.”
And while all this was happening, Musk was talking about livestreaming Diablo 4 on X. Thankfully, the billionaire spared us from seeing what we can only imagine is a dreadful build.
[Image – BoliviaInteligente on Unsplash]
