The US Senate could enact a new one law for the regulation of Big Tech after the “case” of Elon Musk and Twitter. The news comes after Congress gave a political ultimatum to Twitter’s new CEO, asking him to “fix” his company before an intervention by the authorities.
Behind the proposed legislation with the task of keep tabs on tech multinationals based in America is the historic Democratic Party Senator Ed Markey, who had entered into a deep controversy with Elon Musk himself a couple of weeks ago over the issue of Twitter’s blue ticks.
Markey, in particular, had turned to Elon Musk after a Washington Post reporter had created a fake Twitter account in his name exploiting the “holes” in the verification systems linked to Twitter Blue, which in fact allowed anyone, for a short period of time, to obtain a verified profile on the platform. The Twitter CEO’s response to the Senator was simple and ironic tweetswhich however does not seem to have satisfied the lawmaker of Washington.
Precisely for this reason, Markey asked the FTC to launch an investigation against Twitter and Elon Musk, obtaining the support of numerous other Democratic Party politicians. At the same time, the senator himself has sent a formal letter to Elon Musk, asking to answer a series of questions by 25 November. As widely expected, the South African billionaire did not respond to Markey’s requests, who decided to refer the matter to Congress.
Specifically, with a post about Twitterthe Senator from Massachusetts explained that “Elon Musk replies to my tweets but fails to respond to my letters. The letter set a deadline for yesterday [il 25 novembre; ndr] and asked basic questions about Twitter’s verification systems. Congress must end the era of Big-Tech self-regulationwhich has failed, and pass laws that put online security out of the clutches of billionaires”.
