Twitter layoffs trigger surveillance risk warning from Brussels

In another move frowned upon by European Union regulators, Twitter, owned by Elon Musk, has closed its Brussels office according to a Financial Times report – citing people with knowledge departures.

Employees in the office focused on the European Union's digital policy, working close to the seat of power of the EU's executive, the European Commission, an entity that plays an ongoing role in shaping EU legislation. The Commission will also soon take on a major new oversight role for the bloc's updated digital rulebook, the Digital Services Act (DSA).

Given the obviously strategic function of the Brussels office, its removal could be interpreted either as a major strategic mistake by Musk, if he did not understand the importance of having a political presence at the heart of the to sway lawmakers and law enforcement - or a very obvious (and intentional) snub to the bloc and its regulations that signals bad news ahead for Twitter's compliance with regional laws.

Be that as it may, the Commission does not seem to take development aside.

In new remarks today, following the latest revelations about Twitter's dismissal - and following a visit by an EU Commissioner to Twitter's Dublin office (which, for now, still exists) - the EU executive has given the clearest indication yet that it may appoint itself as the birding site's compliance supervisor with the incoming DSA.

If that happens, Musk's regulatory risk in Europe will really take off. The impasse is therefore real.

Farewell Brussels?

According to the FT, Twitter's last two public policy staff, Julia Mozer and Dario La Nasa - who, according to its report, were in charge of the company's digital policy in Europe - have left Twitter last week, which led to the closure of the Brussels office. fully dissolved.

Since Musk took over the social media business, Twitter's communications team has not responded to press requests for comment, so it has not been possible to get an official confirmation of the closing of the office.

We have also been unable to reach Mozer or NASA at the time of writing this article to confirm the information from the FT. Neither appears to have tweeted about leaving the company - nor updated their LinkedIn profile to announce a job change at this time.

The newspaper reports that more Twitter political staff left the tiny Brussels office earlier this month — part of an earlier global workforce cut by Musk, who reportedly cut 50% of jobs earlier this month. Other small layoffs followed.

Last week, Politico reported that another Brussels-based Twitter staffer, Stephen Turner - who, according to his LinkedIn profile, had worked at the company for more than six years, most recently as director of European public policy at Twitter - was among the employees who were fired by Musk.

Turner tweeted Monday the week that he had "officially retired from Twitter." "From setting up the office in Brussels to building a great team, it's been an incredible journey," he added, describing himself as "privileged and honoured" to have worked with "the best colleagues" and "excellent partners".

Turner could not confirm more recent departures from his old office, but he was able to tell us that there were a total of six employees working in Brussels prior to Musk's takeover of Twitter - which he does not only two remained when he left last week (corresponding to the FT report that there is no longer an office in Brussels following the departures of the last remaining employees).

So, uh, the big question now is will the WTF happen next for Twitter's ability to comply with EU rules?

The Brussels-based European Commission will soon begin overseeing the regulation of major internet platforms under the incoming DSA – a major update to the bloc's digital rulebook that will certainly apply to Twitter. Although the company can - and perhaps, on paper, should - avoid a centralized application by the Commission itself, which is supposed to take on this role only for so-called very large online platforms (aka VLOP), with more than 45 million users in the region. (Otherwise, the job falls to EU member state authorities – or a principal authority in the case of a business with a principal place of business in the EU.)

But the large-scale layoffs at Twitter have sparked growing concern among the Commission and other EU regulators about its failure to comply with key EU laws - covering areas such as removal of illegal content (as the DSA does) or data protection. (under the General Data Protection Regulation; GDPR). This pushes Brussels to adopt a more aggressive tone towards Twitter.