Unexpected meeting of Emmanuel Macron and Elon Musk

Emmanuel Macron traveled to New Orleans, a city symbolic of historic Franco-American ties, on Friday to celebrate the Francophonie and… meet Elon Musk. The interview had not previously been announced by the Élysée and was kept away from the media.

Emmanuel Macron and Elon Musk happily exchanged views on content moderation on Twitter, while the entrepreneur has so far made decisions that largely contradict the exhortations of the French president and other European leaders.

“Transparent terms of use, a significant increase in content moderation and protection of freedom of speech: Twitter must make an effort to comply with European regulations,” the head of state added in a series of tweets. He also said he had discussed with the Tesla co-founder “future green industrial projects such as electric vehicles and batteries.”

“It was an honor to see you again,” Elon Musk replied, saying that he was “impatient” about the “exciting projects in France.”

The richest man in the world bought Twitter at the end of October for $44 billion. His absolutist vision of free speech worries many users, authorities and advertisers who fear a surge of hate and misinformation. Elon Musk has confirmed Twitter’s participation in the Christchurch Call. Terrorist and violent content has no place anywhere,” the French president clarified, referring to an initiative launched by several states and non-governmental organizations in 2019 after the murders in Christchurch, New Zealand, whose images remained online for hours.

The businessman did not react at all to this moment. Initially, he promised to set up a content moderation commission responsible for all major decisions, but he eventually decided to restore many accounts himself, starting with the account of former US President Donald Trump, which was blocked after the attack on the Capitol in January 2021.

Responsibilities and Restrictions

He also put an end to the fight against misinformation related to Covid, which Emmanuel Macron says is a “big problem”. “I think we should tackle this issue head-on, I’m in favor of the exact opposite, more regulation. We do it (in France, ed.) and we do it at the European level,” he said on Thursday in an interview with ABC.

Freedom of speech “implies responsibility and limitations. You cannot go out and make racist or anti-Semitic remarks, this is a point that is important for me to defend, ”he added.

Back on Wednesday, European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton told Elon Musk that “there is still a huge amount of work to be done.” Twitter will have to “significantly increase content moderation.” […] and resolutely fight disinformation,” he added, according to a report from their telephone exchange.

moderate moderation

The new owner of Twitter fired more than half of the employees of the Californian group, and the content moderation teams did not bypass.

Racist, homophobic, misogynistic and anti-Semitic messages on the platform have increased “shockingly” in a month, according to several NGOs, including the Center to Combat Digital Hate. “Totally false,” Elon Musk tweeted in response to a New York Times article detailing the association’s findings.

The account of the American rapper Kanye West was blocked for “incitement to violence”, in particular, after the publication of admiring remarks about Hitler. And Elon Musk opposes the return of Alex Jones, the far-right American conspirator convicted of alleging that the school massacre was just a staging of anti-guns. Having survived the death of his first child, the multi-billionaire explained that he is “merciless to anyone who uses the death of children for (obtaining) financial, political or glorious gain.”

Emmanuel Macron also ended his series of tweets by stating: “We will work with Twitter to improve child protection online. Elon Musk confirmed this to me today. Let’s better protect our children online! »

SourceAFP