The European Commission announced extra steps in its investigation of social media platform X on Friday, amid growing anger at the political interference in EU affairs of its owner Elon Musk.
Just days a few days before US President-elect Donald Trump takes office, the European Commission has said it is seeking further information from the US tech company, as part of its case opened on 18 December 2023 under the Digital Services Act (DSA).
It comes amid growing anger over Elon Musk’s open support for the far-right in Europe. His favouring of the German far-right party Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) ahead of the German elections on 23 February, has added to the pressure for the EU to act.
A 'debate' between Elon Musk and Alice Weidel, the leader of the AfD, was streamed on X at the beginning of the month, provoked the European Commission into saying it was monitoring the for any potential preferential treatment.
Aside from his numerous outbursts, Musk also penned an opinion piece in the German press expressing support for the German far-right party.
Recommender systems
As part of Friday's announcement, the new information being requested relates to the platform's recommender system. The European Commission wants the company to share by 15 February 2025 how these systems, which promote certain posts above others, work in practice. The company has to also show any recent changes made to them.
The EU has also handed X a ‘retention order' – which requires the platform to preserve internal documents and information about future design changes and of its recommender algorithms for the period between 17 January 2025 and 31 December 2025.
Elon Musk held a friendly conversation with AfD leader Alice Weidel live on X, where she falsely claimed Hitler was a communist and was not corrected. Credit: Belga
Finally, the Commission issued a number of requests, such as accessing X's commercial APIs, its technical interfaces and information on how user accounts go viral.
These steps will allow them to take all relevant facts into account in the complex assessment under the DSA of systemic risks and their mitigation, the Commission concluded.
“Today we are taking further steps to shed light on the compliance of X's recommender systems with the obligations under the DSA,” said Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, Henna Virkkunen.
“We are committed to ensuring that every platform operating in the EU respects our legislation, which aims to make the online environment fair, safe, and democratic for all European citizens.”
