Twitter’s decision to close its Brussels office and lay off thousands of employees raises concerns about whether the company will be able to comply with tough new European Union rules against illegal online content, EU Justice Chief Didier Reynders said on Thursday.
Reinders, who met with Twitter representatives at the social media platform’s European headquarters in Dublin, sought an explanation from the company, a European Commission official told Reuters.
“Twitter representatives confirmed the company’s commitment to ensure full compliance with EU regulations.
Commissioner Reynders took note of this and asked Twitter to translate this commitment into concrete measures,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
The new rules, known as the Digital Services Act, which will take effect from February 2024, require online platforms to do more to monitor the internet for illegal content or face fines of up to 6% of their annual global turnover.
Twitter fired top executives and forced job cuts without warning after billionaire Elon Musk’s stormy takeover of the company last month.
About half of the workforce – about 3,700 employees – have been laid off and more than 1,000 have resigned.
The last two Twitter employees working in Brussels are no longer with the company, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
The team that interacted with the Commission’s policy and regulatory officials initially consisted of six people.
Reinders also warned Twitter and other tech companies to do more to tackle online hate speech after recent data showed they removed less content this year than in previous years.
