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FRENCH PRESIDENT EMMANUEL Macron has met with Elon Musk for what he called a “clear and honest discussion” amid mounting concerns over a rise in hate speech on Twitter.
While visiting the United States yesterday, the French leader posted a photo on Twitter of his encounter with the billionaire, showing the two men sitting across from each other at a table in an empty room.
In addition to discussing “future green industrial projects”, Macron said the pair talked about the social media platform’s “transparent user policies, significant reinforcement of content moderation and protection of freedom of speech”.
Macron had criticised Musk’s relaxation of content moderation policies the day earlier, telling the television programme Good Morning America it was “a big issue”.
“Free speech and democracy is based on respect and public order. You can demonstrate, you can have free speech, you can write what you want, but there are responsibilities and limits,” Macron said in the interview, adding that he is in favour of more regulation.
Yesterday evening though, the French president said Musk had confirmed Twitter’s participation to the Christchurch Call which was founded by France and New Zealand in response to the terror attack on two Christchurch mosques in 2019.
The Call entails voluntary commitments by governments and tech companies to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online.
In announcing Musk’s commitment to the Call, Macron said: “There is no place for terrorist and violent extremist content anywhere.”
In another tweet the French president added: “Transparent user policies, significant reinforcement of content moderation and protection of freedom of speech: efforts have to be made by Twitter to comply with European regulations.”
Another post by the president said France and Twitter would be working together to improve online child protection on the platform.
“Elon Musk confirmed it to me today. Let’s better protect our children online,” Macron said.
It comes after online safety campaigners said hate speech on Twitter is rising under Musk’s ownership, despite the billionaire’s claims that it has been declining.
The Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) said Musk’s recent tweet suggesting that hate speech impressions are down by a third was “misleading” because it focused on how often tweets were seen, rather than how many containing hate speech were actually being posted to the site.
In its own research, the CCDH said it has found that, since Musk took over the social media platform at the end of October, the number of tweets containing racist and other hateful terms has risen substantially.
The data showed that the number of tweets containing the N-word are being posted at triple the rate compared with before Musk’s takeover.
And it revealed that tweets containing other racist, homophobic and transphobic terms are also being posted more regularly.
The group analysed tweets from the month preceding Musk’s takeover and compared them with posts in the week leading up to his tweet about hate speech impressions.
The CCDH said Musk’s focus on tweet impressions was obscuring the fact that the number of hateful tweets being hosted by Twitter was actually rising, which it said was a failure to enforce platform community standards.
Before his takeover, the billionaire businessman had said he believed Twitter should allow more free speech and that he would loosen content moderation to enable this to happen.
Earlier in the week a top European Union official also warned the social media platform’s new owner that the company must do more to protect users from harmful content.
Advertising accounts for the vast majority of Twitter’s revenue, and some companies have already paused their advertising on the platform over concerns about Musk’s approach.
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The producers are bluffing the EU, Ireland is doing it right. Aldi and Lidl do this here too – you can see exactly where the fish was caught, how it was caught and even the scientific name of the kind of fish. It obviously doesn’t cost Aldi and Lidl huge amounts to respect customers enough to supply information.
New law! How about enforcing the old laws that would be a start.
Closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.
This is why intelligent humans choose vegetarianism.
@Tommy_Bannon: Closing the stable door after the horse was eaten , to be more precise
Don’t forget there are plenty of intelligent people who eat meat too.
If you want to be healthy try cutting animal products from your diet. Processed meat that comes in a packet can’t be good for you. Either can milk from another animal that full of hormones and puss..
European milk does not contain hormones or ‘puss’. Every delivery from every farm is checked for temperature, antibiotics, bacteria etc. So stop spreading downright lies about the food we produce.
@Mick: of course there’s hormones in milk. You do realise dairy cows are constantly impregnated to produce milk. Cows like women are full of hormones while pregnant and those naturally produced hormones go into their milk to help bulk up calves. Its not intended for human consumption.. If you’re happy drinking and eating another animals milk go ahead.. Each to their own i suppose
I’m a dairy farmer myself. I understand completely the process works. What you are implying is false though. Natural, grass fed milk contains nothing untoward, we’ve been drinking milk for thousands of years. It’s when people start adding sugar and salt, E numbers and artificial chemical additives is when the trouble starts.
@Mick: Mick im not implying anything false. Cows milk is full of hormones, hormones that nature intends to help calves bulk up hundreds of pounds. It is not intended for children or adults to consume.
The natural hormones in milk are not in unusual quantities to cause any harm in humans. The levels of protein, butterfat etc in the 6L+ of milk that a calf consumes are responsible for growth. Generations of Irish people have eaten beef, dairy, eggs etc without issue. Obesity has only become an issue in this country since the 70′s, due to the advent of cheap, highly processed foods, the likes of coca cola with 30g+ of sugar per serving.
@Cosmo Kramer: backtrack much?
What about products labelled as Irish but brought down from the Uk?
No mention of take always etc imposing their religious beliefs on you, if you buy a ham pizza at many hundred placed you may be served dyed turkey NOT ham because these people don’t have any respect for you, nor your freedom to eat what you choose. It is often written on menu boards but often it won’t; it is dishonest but not illegal make sure your ham is not turkey meat dyed pink a common practice these days but The EU respect our rights on these issues.
Any particular reason a Lidl own-brand product was chosen to illustrate the story? Is there something we should be told?
Anybody .anywhere.here or abroad held accountable for putting shit into our food in the form of un regulated horse meat?anyone..
have your say