4 ms·

Commission concludes that X should not be designated under the DMA

40 points by robin_reala 2y ago

geocar 2y ago
In case anyone is interested in reading the actual decision: https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/202441/DMA_100041_631.pdf https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/2...
- kd5bjo 2y 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 https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/index_en
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
soco 2y ago
I feel if this was tried before Musk took over, the result could have been quite different.
- kranke155 2y ago
  Why is that?
  - shafyy 2y ago
    Power
  - 1oooqooq 2y ago
    my guess is because it required blatantly lying about not being a comms channels. it would definitely give different.
anentropic 2y 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 2y 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 2y ago
  Why would we want powerful unelected government bureaucrats engaged in "sick burns?"
  - solardev 2y ago
    The powerful unelected government bureaucrats are the only people protecting users from powerful unelected billionaire bureaucrats.
    - ekianjo 2y ago
      You need protection from X? You can just not use it.
      - solardev 2y ago
        Unfortunately in the US many important agencies chose to use it to publish announcements, even for important public safety things. I don't have an account and am thus prevented from seeing what the agencies are saying. I would like to see regulations preventing governments from doing this.
        clarionbell 2y ago
        You can just use their websites instead. But that does involve looking them up.
matthberg 2y 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 https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/about-dma_en
ChocolateGod 2y 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.
- timeon 2y 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.
  - ChocolateGod 2y ago
    I'd rather it just be on the website or app with an rss feed.
- echoangle 2y 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?
  - diggan 2y 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 2y 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?
solardev 2y 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.
- withinboredom 2y 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
  - timeon 2y ago
    Many are now using Wayland instead of X. But https://twitter.com/ https://twitter.com/ still returns 200.
    - diggan 2y ago
      `curl -v https://twitter.com https://twitter.com` returns HTTP 302 for me, which is kind of funny. If the redirect was permanent, they'd use HTTP 301 (Moved Permanently) but instead they use HTTP 302 is amounts to "Moved Temporarily". I wonder if there is still a chance it'll move back to Twitter so people can start to recognize it again.
      - withinboredom 2y ago
        I also wonder if this was an engineering troll.
      - solardev 2y ago
        Who knows, Elon might decide X is too long tomorrow and rename it to / Eventually it's just going to become some invisible unicode char. Fits the "space" theme better.
  - solardev 2y ago
aspenmayer 2y 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-concludes-online-social-networking-service-x-should-not-be-designated-under-digital-2024-10-16_en https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/commission-conclude...
orwin 2y 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 2y ago
so TikTok is one, but X is not. Hmm.
fmajid 2y ago
Well, yes. It’s only the 16th largest social network and totally marginal, except for journalists’ inexplicable infatuation with it.

40 points by robin_reala 2y ago

In case anyone is interested in reading the actual decision: https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/202441/DMA_100041_631.pdf https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/2...

kd5bjo 2y 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 https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/index_en
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

soco 2y ago

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

kranke155 2y ago
Why is that?
- shafyy 2y ago
  Power
- 1oooqooq 2y ago
  my guess is because it required blatantly lying about not being a comms channels. it would definitely give different.

anentropic 2y 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 2y 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 2y ago
Why would we want powerful unelected government bureaucrats engaged in "sick burns?"
- solardev 2y ago
  The powerful unelected government bureaucrats are the only people protecting users from powerful unelected billionaire bureaucrats.
  - ekianjo 2y ago
    You need protection from X? You can just not use it.
    - solardev 2y ago
      Unfortunately in the US many important agencies chose to use it to publish announcements, even for important public safety things. I don't have an account and am thus prevented from seeing what the agencies are saying. I would like to see regulations preventing governments from doing this.
      - clarionbell 2y ago
        You can just use their websites instead. But that does involve looking them up.

matthberg 2y 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 https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/about-dma_en

ChocolateGod 2y 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.

timeon 2y 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.
- ChocolateGod 2y ago
  I'd rather it just be on the website or app with an rss feed.
echoangle 2y 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?
- diggan 2y 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 2y 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?

solardev 2y 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.

withinboredom 2y 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
- timeon 2y ago
  Many are now using Wayland instead of X. But https://twitter.com/ https://twitter.com/ still returns 200.
  - diggan 2y ago
    `curl -v https://twitter.com https://twitter.com` returns HTTP 302 for me, which is kind of funny. If the redirect was permanent, they'd use HTTP 301 (Moved Permanently) but instead they use HTTP 302 is amounts to "Moved Temporarily". I wonder if there is still a chance it'll move back to Twitter so people can start to recognize it again.
    - withinboredom 2y ago
      I also wonder if this was an engineering troll.
    - solardev 2y ago
      Who knows, Elon might decide X is too long tomorrow and rename it to / Eventually it's just going to become some invisible unicode char. Fits the "space" theme better.
- solardev 2y ago

aspenmayer 2y 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-concludes-online-social-networking-service-x-should-not-be-designated-under-digital-2024-10-16_en https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/commission-conclude...

orwin 2y 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 2y ago

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

fmajid 2y ago

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