A high-ranking representative from the European Commission has disclosed that Elon Musk’s X social media platform operates with a notably lesser number of content censors to administer EU online content mandates and is suggesting X hire more.
According to this commission official, the personnel count is considerably low, with only 2,294 content moderators, especially when compared to tech giants like Google and TikTok.
The recently instituted EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) necessitates a total of 19 substantial online platforms and 2 large online search engines, including Google, X, TikTok, Apple, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft, to ramp up their efforts in combating illicit and harmful content on their respective platforms.
A renewed aura of concern has enveloped X after Musk decided to downsize most of the staff who were expressly tasked to censor content.
In line with the corporate reports submitted to the EU in September, Google’s YouTube boasts almost 17,000 content censors, while Google Play and TikTok harbor a robust around 7,000 and 6,000 content censors respectively, sharply contrasting X’s 2,294 EU content moderators.
The EU commission representative noted these observations to Reuters without revealing her identity.
Acknowledging the stark differences, the official expresses her hope that X would succumb to pressure to scale up its content censorship unit to level with its competitors. “There is an important aspect of the DSA, and that is peer pressure,” she added.
