European Commission adds “additional investigatory measures to X” as part of its ongoing DSA investigation
The European Commission said on Friday it is stepping up its investigation into whether Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) has breached EU rules on content moderation.
The Commission announced “additional investigatory measures to X in the ongoing proceedings under the Digital Services Act”. It has requested X to provide by 15 Feb internal documentation about its recommender system that makes content suggestions to users, and any recent changes made to it.
It comes after the European Commission had in December 2023 launched its first investigation into a suspected failure by X to fight against disinformation and content manipulation on the platform.
Content moderation
In July 2024 the European Union preliminary concluded that under the Digital Services Act (DSA), Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) does not comply with the DSA in key transparency areas.
It cited areas of concern at X that were linked to dark patterns, advertising transparency and data access for researchers.
Elon Musk’s decision in January 2023 to axe most of Twitter’s external content moderation teams, along with 80 percent of the Twitter workforce, proved to be controversial, and contributed to an advertising exodus from the platform.
Deepening investigation
But now the EC is requesting additional documentation from Elon Musk’s platform, just days before he attends the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump.
“Today we are taking further steps to shed light on the compliance of X’s recommender systems with the obligations under the DSA,” stated executive VP 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,” said Virkkunen.
Besides requesting X provide internal documentation on its recommender systems and any recent changes made to it, by 15 February, the Commission has also issued a ‘retention order’.
This requires X to preserve internal documents and information regarding future changes to the design and functioning of its recommender algorithms, for the period between 17 January 2025 and 31 December 2025, unless the Commission’s ongoing investigation is concluded beforehand.
Finally, the Commission issued a request for access to certain of X’s commercial APIs, technical interfaces to its content that allow direct fact-finding on content moderation and virality of accounts.
Far right
The move comes after Germany’s foreign and defence ministries stated this week they would refocus their public communications away from X.
Musk has been accused of meddling in European politics, and has called for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to be replaced, labelled German Chancellor Olaf Scholz an “incompetent fool”, and gave his enthusiastic backing to Alice Weidel, the leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfG) party, during a live interview with her on X.
Musk’s backing for the far right saw dozens of universities, unions and research institutions in Germany and Austria announce their intention to drop their presence on X.
Elon Musk has been repeatedly cited by national leaders over his inflammatory tweets against the governments and leaders of a number of nations around the world.
It has been reported that UK counter-extremism unit officials are now monitoring social media posts by Elon Musk and others as a possible security risk.