Commission concludes that X should not be designated under the DMA

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/mex_24_5324

by robin_reala • 2 years ago

40 60 2 years ago

ec.europa.eu

soco• 2 years ago

I feel if this was tried before Musk took over, the result could have been quite different.

kranke155• 2 years ago

Why is that?

shafyy• 2 years ago

Power

1oooqooq• 2 years ago

my guess is because it required blatantly lying about not being a comms channels. it would definitely give different.

anentropic• 2 years ago

"...given that the investigation revealed that X is not an important gateway for business users to reach end users"

EU commission bringing the sick burns

robin_reala• 2 years ago

X also submitted rebuttal arguments, explaining why its online social networking service should not, in its view, qualify as an important gateway between businesses and consumers

The Commission is just agreeing with X’s own arguments.

paulvnickerson• 2 years ago

Why would we want powerful unelected government bureaucrats engaged in "sick burns?"

solardev12• 2 years ago

The powerful unelected government bureaucrats are the only people protecting users from powerful unelected billionaire bureaucrats.

timeon3• 2 years ago

This is lazy argument. Commission is nominated like any other ministry from elected coalitions in particular countries.

Commission could be directly elected as well, but no country wants that because then national states would lose relevance - as the local governments would loose control.

iterance• 2 years ago

It's a joke; in reality, X/Twitter got the outcome they wanted here, which is for the commission to rule they do not need to follow DMA supplemental guidelines which apply to gatekeeper businesses. The language in this announcement is completely pro forma, but taken out of context, sounds a bit like they're saying X/Twitter is bad at their advertising line of business.

geocar• 2 years ago

In case anyone is interested in reading the actual decision:

https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/2...

kd5bjo• 2 years ago

That's an old decision to open an investigation into X. Presumably, that investigation has now concluded producing the finding being announced today.

According to the press release, "The non-confidential version of the decision will be published on the Commission's DMA website[1]," but it doesn't appear to have been published there yet.

[1] https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/index_en

matthberg• 2 years ago

Seems like this would be beneficial for Twitter since it exempts them from the extra regulation that being a DMA "gatekeeper" entails. It seems like the main target of the DMA is front-page of the web/device interaction type entities like search results pages or app stores. Being designated seems to mean you're subject to more requirements around fairness, self-promotion, and access rights.

All this gleaned from this official summary article from the EU: https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/about-dma_en

ChocolateGod3• 2 years ago

The bus company I use only publishes real-time status updates (e.g. delayed/cancelled busses) on X (formally known as Twitter), there are no other bus companies in the area and without logging in X forces timelines to be out of order or hidden.

gatekeeper for me.

timeon3• 2 years ago

Try to write them. Our national train company moved from Twitter to Mastodon. Barely anyone is using Mastodon but anyone can read the posts without restrictions. That was not the case with the Twitter.

ChocolateGod3• 2 years ago

I'd rather it just be on the website or app with an rss feed.

echoangle• 2 years ago

I don't get why so many organizations do this. Wouldn't you just want some kind of news feed on your website? The whole social aspect of Twitter doesn't matter for this, they just want to push out timestamped messages in a queue. Is it so hard to host something that does this?

diggan4• 2 years ago

If you told someone at that organization (besides a programmer/developer) exactly that, they wouldn't even understand the words "feed", "push out", "timestamped", "queue" and "host", so no wonder people opt for the simplest possible solution, especially when they might have a underpaid and overworked IT department that barely have programmers in it, if any.

knicholes• 2 years ago

Is there anyone who used to use Twitter that doesn't now already know that it's called "X?" How many years will it take before we just accept its new name?

ChocolateGod3• 2 years ago

I was just copying what the mainstream media currently calls it (X, formally known as Twitter) which I find funny.

philipwhiuk• 2 years ago

"The Artist Formerly Known as Prince" wants a word.

amadeuspagel• 2 years ago

A company using only one service for something, when they could easily use another, or their own website, doesn't turn that service into a gatekeeper.

solardev12• 2 years ago

Is that true in the EU? In the US, there are certainly agencies and local governments who primarily or only communicate real time news through Twitter. Even other tech companies do this instead of posting on their own blogs or forums. It's annoying as heck, especially since Musk made it so that you can't see the latest posts without an account.

withinboredom2• 2 years ago

Kinda hard to do since Twitter doesn't exist any more. There's a thing called X that is basically the same thing though. /s

timeon3• 2 years ago

Many are now using Wayland instead of X.

But https://twitter.com/ still returns 200.

solardev12• 2 years ago

They renamed Twitter? Why would they do that? Sounds like the kind of thing that a bored and stoned billionaire would do for the lulz

a2128• 2 years ago

In my experience, the local governments here most often use Facebook, not Twitter

diggan4• 2 years ago

Is that true in the EU? In the US, there are certainly agencies and local governments who primarily or only communicate real time news through Twitter.

Hard to say how it works across the EU, but in Spain, there was a point where many of the various local arms of government did use Twitter as the primary tool to reach people, at least here in Barcelona/Catalunya. Not all agencies, and never as the only communication tool, but things often appeared there first.

At one point, Telegram was added to the mix, and seems it's usage is kind of spread now, but again, never the only communication path, just another channel. Twitter usage fell at some point too.

All the important information still goes out via proper websites.

That a government agency would use a for-profit platform for its primary and only way of communicating with the citizens sounds absolutely bananas to me, but I guess it makes sense for a country centered around for-profit enterprises.

solardev12• 2 years ago

Yeah, and in the US, governments are typically pretty poorly resourced and IT starved. The average local gov can barely use MS Office, much less manage a proper blog site.

The federal / state / local divide makes it more complicated too. We don't have one government but several, usually at least four (fed, state, county, city), not even counting the agencies that actually do things. They all end up reinventing the wheel in some shitty way or else just using some staffer's Twitter or Facebook account.

aspenmayer• 2 years ago

Original link is to a press release feed which includes material unrelated to headline; the URL for the specific press release related to the headline of the OP is:

https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/commission-conclude...

orwin• 2 years ago

I mean, it's fair. I don't really use social media bar forums (HN and P&P RPG), and always had minimal presence on them, but nowadays, especially in France, it seems nothing of importance is on twitter.

FIFA and FIBA were never big on those platforms, using instagram instead, it was mostly invested by politics or other people trying to emulate/simulate the US media space. The only people i know outside of tech and politics who use twitter are NBA fans.

To me using it in europe is a clear marker of americanization, and most europeans aren't americanized yet, so it isn't really am important gateway.

d--b• 2 years ago

so TikTok is one, but X is not. Hmm.

fmajid• 2 years ago

Well, yes. It’s only the 16th largest social network and totally marginal, except for journalists’ inexplicable infatuation with it.

Commission concludes that X should not be designated under the DMA

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