Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found here.
https://www.ft.com/content/20141fb1-d8f7-4c9e-a0d0-ded1ac8c7947
Elon Musk and the EU are in a dispute over the Twitter owner’s plan to use more volunteers and artificial intelligence to help moderate the social media platform, as the company responds to strict new rules designed to police online content. According to four people familiar with talks between Musk, Twitter executives and regulators in Brussels, the billionaire has been told to hire more human moderators and fact-checkers to review posts. The demand complicates Musk’s efforts to reorganise the lossmaking business he acquired for $44bn in October. The new owner has slashed more than half of Twitter’s 7,500 staff, including the entire trust and safety teams in some offices, while seeking cheaper methods to monitor tweets. Twitter currently uses a mix of human moderation and AI technology to detect and review harmful material, in line with other social media platforms. However, it does not employ fact checkers, unlike larger rival Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram. Twitter has also been using volunteer moderators for a feature called ‘community notes’ to tackle the deluge of misinformation on the platform — but the tool is not used to address the illegal content. Musk also told EU commissioner Thierry Breton last January that it will lean further on its AI processes, said people with direct knowledge of the talks. Those people said Breton advised that, while it was up to Twitter to come up with the best way to moderate the site, he was expecting the company to hire people to comply with the Digital Services Act.