Arcom Calls Twitter Lacks Transparency in Fighting Misinformation

Arcom officials in the French government. (photo: Twitter @CaroleBienaime)

JAKARTA - The French regulator in charge of digital communications, Arcom, said on Monday, November 28 that Twitter has shown a lack of transparency in the fight against misinformation. This comes as social media platforms face increased scrutiny following sharp layoffs.

In its third annual report on the "war against manipulation of information", Arcom pointed to Twitter's "very lax data transparency" on the matter. They added that the company had provided "inaccurate" details about how its automated tools worked.

A spokesperson for Twitter in France did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment from Reuters. The spokesperson also hasn't responded to questions since Elon Musk took over Twitter last month.

While Arcom does not have the authority to sanction online platforms for spreading false information.

But under a French law adopted in 2018, 12 of these platforms must disclose the process they have put in place to deal with their own definition of misinformation, leading to the presentation of "naming and shaming" by the authorities.

The 12 online platforms include Alphabet's YouTube, the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, Facebook from Meta and for the first time also the fast-growing short video platform TikTok, which is owned by China-based company ByteDance.

French law also compels major online platforms to provide a means for their users to report false information that could potentially change election results. But Twitter isn't the worst in its class, according to the Arcom report.

"TikTok, Yahoo and, to a lesser extent, Google, stand out primarily because there is no real information that would allow Arcom to analyze the effectiveness of measures aimed at combating the manipulation of information," the French authorities said.

The report comes a week after Twitter's France head announced his retirement.

Twitter, in early November and following Musk's takeover, laid off half of its workforce, including from teams responsible for communications, content curation, human rights and machine learning ethics, as well as several product and engineering teams.

In its filing with Arcom prior to Musk's acquisition, Twitter said it had 34 full-time employees in France, where they generate 11.8 million euros in revenue in 2021.