The Guardian and La Vanguardia’s departure from X is a wake-up call for legislators
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.”
The dire need to update regulations
The way these platforms are managed has created a media landscape where reliable news outlets are increasingly marginalised and social media giants feel empowered to abuse them as their economic and ideological interests see fit. In Canada, Meta is censoring news media in response to Bill C-18, which requires the platform to compensate the outlets for publishing their content. On 13 November, Google announced plans to experiment with restricting access to media outlets in its search engine for a sample group of users in Europe – a move blocked by the Paris Commercial Court in France, but not in other affected countries.
To counter these trends, RSF proposes the following concrete measures:
- Promote journalistic content in algorithms: algorithms must be updated to prioritise journalistic sources — namely by incorporating reliable professional standards like the Journalism Trust Initiative (JTI) — and promote diverse points of view.
- Distinguish influencer accounts from journalist accounts: Clearly differentiating influencers from journalists is essential to helping citizens identify reliable sources of information.
- Regularly evaluate social media’s impact on press freedom: Independent public audits should be frequently conducted to assess these platforms' impact on press freedom, following a model similar to that of the Digital Services Act (DSA) in Europe.
4. Obligate social media platforms to remain neutral: Digital spaces should serve the public’s right to information, not just the promotion of personal beliefs or private interests.
