The Guardian and La Vanguardia will stop sharing their content on X (formerly Twitter) due to the disinformation flooding the platform. Reporters With

The Guardian and La Vanguardia’s departure from X is a wake-up call for legislators

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2024-11-15 17:00:09

The Guardian and La Vanguardia will stop sharing their content on X (formerly Twitter) due to the disinformation flooding the platform. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) argues that this is a glaring sign of the authorities’ failure to establish regulations that protect reliable sources of information on digital platforms.

On Thursday, 14 November, the British daily The Guardian and the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia announced they would no longer post their content on X, citing the deluge of disinformation and “toxicity” plaguing the social media platform. X’s tendency to privilege content packed with falsehoods over reliable reporting is just one symptom of a bigger global issue: digital platforms have concentrated power over the dissemination of information. What’s more, Donald Trump — an ally to X’s owner Elon Musk — was just elected president of the US, significantly diminishing the chances of establishing legal frameworks to protect reliable information on social media.

"At this stage, attempts to regulate platforms, such as the European Digital Services Act (DSA), are just a bandaid on a growing infection. It took Elon Musk just two years to radically transform a social media platform into a powerful vehicle for widespread disinformation, and none of the laws enacted by democratic states could do anything to stop it. Let’s be clear: current regulations fall short of what is needed. We call on lawmakers to take more ambitious measures, and we’ve proposed concrete solutions to achieve this.”