Twitter’s ‘Brave’ Stance on Trump Mirrors EU Plan, Jourova Says

(Bloomberg) -- Twitter Inc. took a “brave” stance to label some of U.S. President Donald Trump's tweets that echoes European Union's ideas for fighting disinformation online, according to one of the architects of the EU proposals.

Twitter “did on American territory and vis-a-vis the American president what we are thinking about in Europe,” European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova told Bloomberg TV's Matt Miller and Anna Edwards on Friday.

“I think it was brave and it was a risky decision,” she said. “I just wanted to support Twitter on that.”

Twitter added labels to tweets by the president on May 26 that it said violated its misinformation policy. Three days later, the San Francisco-based company slapped a rule-violation notice on another post by Trump warning protesters in Minnesota that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”

Twitter's move follows similar measures that the commission is developing to make online content less harmful for users, said Jourova, whose role covers EU values and transparency. The EU is pushing for “a more consistent approach” and is also planing “to have some rules in place by the end of this year” for the 27-nation bloc, she said.

Twitter Labels on Trump Posts Get Support From EU's Jourova

The Brussels-based commission will next week announce plans how it plans to tackle disinformation surrounding the Covid-19 virus, Jourova said. This will include details “on what has been done, what we are doing now, what we plan to do.” Cooperation with the platforms “has a prominent role” in this, she added.

The EU's executive authority also plans to propose new rules “that will increase the responsibility of the platforms in relation to illegal content,” because not all the content is legal in Europe, she said. “We will also announce how to protect elections and democracy against the impact of disinformation.”

The EU is planning to overhaul its liability rules for platforms, which currently insulate them from legal culpability for what users post on their sites. As part of the blueprint, the EU is set to give platforms clearer obligations and responsibilities for such user activity.

The legislative process formally kicked off this week with a public consultation running until September.