On Friday 17 January, the European Commission announced that it was extending its investigation into the X platform, requesting further information on its recommendation system and APIs (its application programming interfaces).
The Commission’s decision comes at a time when the EU has been under pressure for several days, following repeated attacks by Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg on the Digital Services Act (DSA) (see EUROPE 13556/7) and European investigations (see EUROPE 13556/8).
On Thursday, around fifty MEPs asked Henna Virkkunen, Commissioner for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, for clarification on the actions to be taken to ensure the proper implementation of and compliance with the DSA (see EUROPE 13559/9).
X is suspected of manipulating its algorithms to shape public debate in Europe and of spreading false information. The Commission is now asking it to provide “internal documentation about its recommender system that makes content suggestions to users, and any recent changes made to it” by 15 February 2025.
It also imposes an “injunction to preserve” its internal documents and information about future changes to the design and operation of its recommendation algorithms until 31 December 2025.
Lastly, the Commission has requested access to some of X’s commercial APIs, technical interfaces with its content that provide direct information on content moderation and virality.
X has been under formal investigation since December 2023. (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)