Throughout Europe, teaming up with Weidel is seen as an inflammatory step as members of her populist and anti-immigration Various for Germany (AfD) get together have for years been accused of whitewashing and trivializing Nazi crimes. The AfD is at the moment polling second.
French President Emmanuel Macron was fast to accuse Musk of getting gone too far in his vocal assist for the AfD. “Ten years in the past, who might have imagined it if we had been instructed that the proprietor of one of many largest social networks on the planet would assist a brand new worldwide reactionary motion and intervene immediately in elections, together with in Germany,” he mentioned in a speech on the Elysée Palace.
The stress is now on the European Fee to reply, on condition that it’s accountable for imposing Europe’s Digital Providers Act, which polices social media platforms together with X, and threatens eye-watering fines of as much as 6 p.c of worldwide turnover, and even non permanent blocks, in case of a breach.
Unfair benefit
The important thing downside that Musk would face legally beneath the DSA issues not a lot content material because the extent to which publicity on a platform as massive as X would give the AfD an unfair public benefit over its rivals earlier than a vote.
Former EU digital enforcer Thierry Breton mentioned Saturday that Weidel will likely be supplied a “vital and beneficial benefit” over her opponents and reminded Musk to stick to his EU social media legislation obligations.
German Greens lawmaker Alexandra Geese outlined the issue as follows: “Elon Musk chatting with AfD chief Alice Weidel on X is roofed by freedom of expression. His algorithmic manipulation, [which] is deliberately flooding German X timelines with far-right propaganda and drowning out progressive content material, is just not.”
