The Commission has taken three additional investigative measures regarding the recommendation system of the X platform, the institution announced on Friday.
These measures are part of the procedure opened in December 2023 under the Digital Services Act (DSA).
“Today, we are taking further steps to shed light on whether X’s recommender systems comply with the obligations arising from the DSA,” said Commission Vice-President in charge of technological sovereignty, Henna Virkkunen. First, the Commission asks X to provide it by February 15 with the “internal documentation on its recommendation system and any recent changes made to it”.
Then, the platform will be required to retain internal documents and information regarding future changes to the design and operation of its recommendation algorithms, for the period between January 17 and December 31, 2025, unless the The Commission's investigation is concluded before this date.
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-Finally, the Commission requested access to certain commercial APIs from X. The APIs are the application programming interfaces, technical interfaces allowing access to content moderation and virality of accounts. “These measures will enable the Commission services to take into account all relevant facts in the complex assessment, under the DSA, of systemic risks and their mitigation”according to the European executive. In December 2023, the Commission opened a formal procedure against X, suspected of having violated the DSA in different areas. The platform is notably suspected of having manipulated the algorithms so that they make certain content more visible – the publications of X boss Elon Musk in particular. The latter has increased his provocations in Europe over the past two weeks. The open procedure has not yet given rise to any official charges.
