Does the buck stop in Brussels? The EU has opened its first-ever proceedings over social media content. In its crosshairs is Elon Musk’s X – formerly Twitter – over illegal posts and disinformation. It follows an initial warning over a deluge of hate spewed on the social networking site in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attack and the war with Israel. We ask about this litmus test for Europe's brand new regulation, known as the Digital Services Act.
In content moderation, there’s moderation and then there’s the content. If 2023 was the year that AI went mainstream with ChatGPT, will 2024 be the year that deepfakes swing elections? A big year of campaigning awaits in Europe, India and the United States. For instance, the EU's new AI legislation calls for the labelling of realistic-looking artificial content. Will it be enough?
Regulators will always be one step behind innovators. In this case, will it be enough? Will citizens demand answers or simply trust what's in their timeline?
Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Guillaume Gougeon and Juliette Brown.
