French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that he and Twitter CEO Elon Musk had a "clear and honest" discussion about content moderation on the social media platform.
Supporters of Macron have seen the president work as an influential world leader, and no stranger to tackling foreign diplomatic issues with a vivacious drive. Speaking to the CEO of Twitter, a company with 25 offices around the world and 237.8 million users seemed inevitable, especially since Musk received another warning from European Commission that it will ban Twitter unless it abides by stricter content moderation rules.
"Transparent user policies, significant reinforcement of content moderation and protection of freedom of speech: efforts have to be made by Twitter to comply with European regulations," Macron tweeted after meeting Musk in New Orleans towards the end of his state visit to the US.
"Elon Musk confirmed the Twitter's participation to the Christchurch Call. There is no place for terrorist and violent extremist content anywhere," tweeted Macron. "We will work with Twitter to improve online child protection. Elon Musk confirmed it to me today. Let's better protect our children online !"
Musk, who finalized his acquisition of Twitter on October 27, came to the platform with a "free speech" goal in which he wanted platform users to be able to "speak freely within the bounds of the law" but did not want the platform to turn into a "free-for-all hellscape".
Musk then reinstated the Twitter accounts of rapper Kanye West, who was first removed from the platform for sharing antisemitic tweets on October 10, as well as the account of former President Donald Trump who was removed from the platform following the January 6 Capitol attack in 2021.
Musk shut down the Twitter account of West on Thursday after the rapper shared a photo of the Star of David inside a swastika. "I tried my best. Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence. Account will be suspended," Musk tweeted about the rapper on Thursday.