Elon Musk’s X told to provide more information to EU investigation
Elon Musk’s X, formerly Twitter, has been ordered to provide more information to the EU in its ongoing proceedings under the Digital Services Act.
The European Commission today said it has addressed three additional technical investigatory measures to X relating to the platform’s recommender system.
These fact-finding steps take place within the scope of the formal proceedings opened on 18 December 2023 under the Digital Services Act (DSA).
Henna Virkkunen, executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy, said: “Today we are taking further steps to shed light on the compliance of X’s recommender systems with the obligations under the DSA.
“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.”
First, the Commission is requesting the company to provide internal documentation on its recommender systems and any recent changes made to it, by 15 February 2025.
In addition, a ‘retention order’ requires the platform 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.
“These steps will allow the Commission services to take all relevant facts into account in the complex assessment under the DSA of systemic risks and their mitigation,” the Commission said in a statement.