The European Commission on Friday (January 17) requested American billionaire Elon Musk to provide internal documents on the X “recommendation system” algorithm, further strengthening the investigation into the operation of the social media platform in Europe.
EU Digital Commissioner Henna Virkkunen stated in a release, “Today, we are taking further steps to understand if X’s recommendation system complies with the Digital Services Act (DSA).”
The Commission hopes that the X platform will submit its relevant internal documents by February 15.
The Commission also issued a “preservation order” to ensure that records of all algorithm changes made by 2025 are preserved, unless the Commission’s investigation concludes by the end of the year.
Additionally, the Commission requested permission for external systems to access the application programming interface (API) of the X platform, allowing for the automatic extraction and analysis of content on the platform.
X has not immediately responded to media requests for comments.
Since December 2023, X company has been under investigation by the EU under the Digital Services Act, investigating how it handles the spread of illegal content and information manipulation.
Recently, Musk’s support for right-wing political figures in Europe has sparked backlash, with some European politicians accusing the company of manipulating platform systems to intervene in elections, giving higher visibility to far-right political figures than other political groups. Musk previously responded that these criticisms were insults to democracy and freedom of speech.
Euronews cited a spokesperson for the Commission in reporting, “This action is unrelated to any political considerations or recent events,” and that the investigation “will help us monitor the operation of systems related to these events.”