The European Union has reportedly threatened to ban Twitter on the bloc’s territory if the social network’s new owner, Elon Musk, does not abide by new strict content moderation rules.

Iran PressEurope: The warning came from European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton during his video call with Musk earlier in the day, people with knowledge of the conversation disclosed.

Breton, who is in charge of implementing the EU’s digital rules, urged Musk to adhere to a checklist of rules, including ditching an "arbitrary" approach to reinstating banned users, pursuing disinformation "aggressively" and agreeing to an "extensive independent audit" of the social network by 2023, the sources told the Financial Times.

Unless Twitter follows the EU's new Digital Services Act, it could face a Europe-wide ban or fines of up to 6% of global turnover, the report said.

Twitter, founded in 2006 and established as a social network for exchanging short messages, was bought by Musk in late October for $44 billion. In November, a little over a week after taking over, the South African billionaire started laying off the company's workers in a bid to place Twitter "on a healthy path," which raised a wave of public criticism.

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