The European Commission announced on Friday new technical measures in the investigation against the social network X. It is suspected of spreading false information and manipulating public debate in Europe, after new provocations from Elon Musk.
‘Today (Friday) we are taking further steps to shed light on the compliance of X’s recommendation systems with the Digital Services Regulation (DSA), announced the European Commissioner for Technological Sovereignty, Henna Virkkunen .
Brussels is under pressure from MEPs and member states to act firmly, while the boss of X is suspected of manipulating its algorithms to support the far right in Europe.
In the run-up to the elections at the end of February in Germany, Elon Musk has regularly shown his support for the AfD, a far-right party across the Rhine. But the new European measures are ‘independent’ of its positions which relate to freedom of expression, according to the EU.
The Commission asked the American social network on Friday to provide before February 15 ‘internal documentation on its recommendation systems and any recent modifications made to them’.
-Additionally, it announced a ‘preservation order’ which requires the platform to ‘preserve internal documents and information regarding future changes in the design and operation of its recommendation algorithms, for the period from January 17, 2025 to 31 December 2025’, unless the Commission’s ongoing investigation is concluded before this date. This investigation was opened in December 2023.
Finally, the Commission issued a ‘request for access to certain commercial APIs of X’, technical interfaces allowing direct access to content to verify content moderation and the virality of accounts.
/ATS
Swiss
