“If it turns out that Elon Musk is using X to amplify his political views, there will be consequences”warns the Minister Delegate in charge of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Technology, Clara Chappaz on France Inter, Monday January 20. Donald Trump returns to the White House, with Elon Musk as special advisor in charge of “government efficiency”.
France Inter: It has been almost two years now since the European Commission opened an investigation against Elon Musk and his social network X. For the moment, there have been no sanctions imposed against Elon Musk. Can we trust the European authorities to sanction, if Elon Musk ever goes outside the framework and if it is proven that he went outside the framework?
Clara Chappaz: There are two things. There is, on the one hand, Elon Musk and his personality, and, on the other hand, X, the platform of which he is at the head. I understand that Elon Musk's personality can be shocking. He made a number of extremely vulgar comments about heads of state, about bosses, about a certain number of people. These comments are not my vision of the world. I think that his project is quite clear, he is openly reactionary, but he is free to use his platform to share his opinions. He is free to express his opinions. What European regulations require, on the other hand, is to ensure that the platform is responsible and that it does not use its own platform to amplify its opinions. It demands that, online and offline, the same laws apply. It asks that platforms commit to being responsible and putting in place measures to combat disinformation or the manipulation of information.
Does this mean that the platforms do not do their regulatory work when false information circulates, including in France?
-The role of the European Commission is not to say this is true or that is false. Its role is to ensure that the platforms are responsible and put in place a certain number of effective tools. On X, there are a number of ongoing investigations. For example, there is a survey that looks at the way moderation is carried out, the effectiveness of moderation tools on X, in particular the fact of using the community to moderate, contextualize content, provide a certain type of information. If it turns out that the results of this investigation make us believe that these tools are not effective and that Elon Musk is using this platform to amplify his political opinions, we are in violation of the DSA [Digital Services Act, le règlement européen sur les services numériques] and there will be consequences.
Will there be economic sanctions? Even if Donald Trump picks up his phone and calls Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the Commission, saying “You want to sanction Elon Musk? Well, I'm increasing customs duties on cars, on spirits, on luxury products or am I going to increase your contribution to NATO?”
You have to trust us, Europeans. Elon Musk, who is head of the X network, has deployed his network in Europe, where there are 450 million consumers. There are more people on X, on Meta, on these social networks in Europe than in the United States. So I would really like to hear from these bosses, if they refuse to comply, what they are going to do about it. Isn't it interesting for them to have their network in Europe? In Europe, we have rights, we have laws. It is a rule of law. If the platforms refuse the fact that we have a certain number of rules, I think we will have a bigger problem than that.
