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(LifeSiteNews) — Elon Musk has denied the claim that he is considering stopping X (formerly Twitter) from operating in the European Union due to frustration with censorship demands. 

A report from Business Insider claimed that a source close to X said that Musk is “increasingly frustrated with having to comply with” the EU’s new censorship law called the Digital Service Act (DSA) and is therefore considering stopping operations in the EU entirely. 

This rumor was picked up by many other news outlets worldwide and widely reported. Musk has now denied the claim and called the Business Insider report “utterly false.” 

In August, the EU introduced the DSA in order to force social media platforms to censor “disinformation” and “hate speech.” If a company fails to comply with the law, it faces an immense fine of up to 6 percent of its annual global revenue. 

Despite Musk’s denial of the report, online free speech may still be threatened in Europe because the EU bureaucracy is currently investigating X.  

After the start of the Israel-Hamas war this month, the EU has launched an investigation into Musk’s social media platform, citing the spread of “illegal content and disinformation” related to the conflict. 

READ: EU investigating Elon Musk’s X over spread of alleged ‘misinformation’ on Israel-Palestine conflict 

“We have, from qualified sources, reports about potentially illegal content circulating on your service despite flags from relevant authorities,” EU Commissioner for Internal Markets Thierry Breton wrote in a letter, calling for Musk to implement “mitigation measures” to curb the content. 

“Public media and civil society organisations widely report instances of fake and manipulated images and facts circulating on your platform in the EU, such as repurposed old images of unrelated armed conflicts or military footage that actually originated from video games,” the letter read. 

In his response on X, Musk explained to Breton that it’s the platform’s policy that “everything is open source and transparent, an approach that I know the EU supports.” 

He asked the EU commissioner to “list the violations you allude to on X, so that that [sic] the public can see them.” 

In a terse response, Breton told Musk the billionaire is “well aware of your users’ — and authorities’— reports on fake content and glorification of violence.” He told Musk it’s “[u]p to you to demonstrate that you walk the talk.” 

X has until the end of the month to respond to the EU’s probe. The EU’s DSA commissioner has also called on TikTok and Facebook to step up censorship of illegal content connected with the conflict. 

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