by Christian Kraemer and Matthias Williams
BERLIN (Reuters) – Twitter must join other technology companies directly monitored by the European Commission, the German competition secretary said, warning of the risk posed by the erratic management of the social network’s new owner Elon Musk on freedom of speech.
Sven Giegold refers in particular to the abrupt suspension of several journalists’ Twitter accounts and access restrictions to several links.
In a letter addressed to two European commissioners, Sven Giegold asks the European Union to launch an investigation into Twitter. The Commission must act to prevent “anti-competitive behavior” from the American social network, he believes.
Twitter was not immediately available for comment. The European Commission confirmed that it had received the letter and said it would respond to it in due course, adding that it was closely monitoring developments at Twitter.
“Terms and conditions that change almost every hour, erratic justifications for extensive restrictions on links and the blocking of journalists threaten freedom of competition and pose a risk to freedom of expression, information and the press”, wrote Sven Giegold on Twitter, while sharing his letter.
On Tuesday, Elon Musk announced that he would leave his post as managing director of Twitter, plunged into chaos since its takeover for 44 billion dollars in October by the businessman, who also heads the car manufacturer Tesla and the Space X aerospace group.
According to Sven Giegold, the new EU regulation on digital markets foresees that the Commission takes over the supervision of large platforms such as Facebook and Google.
“However, Twitter is not yet ranked as a dominant digital platform, partly because the company’s revenue is still too low,” he explained. “Nevertheless, Twitter exerts a great influence on the formation of public opinion all over the world and also in Europe.”
The European Commission said for its part that it was working on the rapid implementation of the new regulations.
“Regarding Twitter and the latest developments: the power of the big platforms over public discourse requires necessary safeguards so that fundamental rights are effectively protected,” she added.
Echoing Sven Giegold’s remarks, the Commission said that some companies could be classified as ‘gatekeepers’ of information and thus fall under the new rules, “on the basis of a qualitative assessment, even if they do not reach the quantitative thresholds”.
(With contributions from Kate Abnett, Blandine Hénault for the French version)