Tech Giants Grapple Russian Propaganda: EU’s Call to Action

In a recent study published by the European Commission, it was found that after Elon Musk changed X’s safety policies, Russian propaganda was able to reach a much wider audience, thanks to the changes made by Musk. 

After an EU report revealed they failed to curb a massive Kremlin disinformation campaign surrounding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last month, there has been intense scrutiny on social media platforms Meta, YouTube, X (formerly Twitter), and TikTok, among others. 

As part of the study conducted by civil society groups and published last week by the European Commission, it was revealed that after the dismantling of Twitter’s safety standards, very clearly Kremlin-backed accounts have gained further influence in the early part of 2023, especially because of the weakened safety standards. 

In the first two months of 2022, pro-Russian accounts have garnered over 165 million subscribers across major platforms, and have generated over 16 billion views since then. There have still been few details as to whether or not the EU will ban the content of Russian state media.

According to the EU study, the failure of X to deal with disinformation, had these rules been in place last year, would have violated these rules if they had been in effect at the time. 

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