News from the campaign BAN-X-in.EU, the European Commission has asked Musk's X to hand over internal documents about its algorithms by 15 February.
If Elon Musk doesn’t comply with the request, the European Commission might finally decide to either ban X completely from Europe or impose a substantial fine on Musk.
However, should we trust Elon Musk to provide documents that are not misleading or fabricated? Will he care about the deadline at all? We should be concerned, given his recent rough behavior toward democratic institutions and his growing political influence. These are the questions the European Commission must consider when assessing his case.
It’s fair to insist on banning X in Europe as soon as possible. We don’t need another investigation, especially when there is already plenty of evidence against Elon Musk for using X to undermine democracy in Europe.
Let’s consider the following timeline:
On July 12, 2024, the European Commission acknowledged that the Musk-owned social network X had already violated European DSA legislation. Since August 25, 2023, X has been on the list of 19 gatekeeper platforms, which must comply with their obligations under the DSA. Moreover, as early as October 2022, Commissioner Thierry Breton warned Elon Musk about respecting the European disinformation regulations, after X started violating DSA previsions already.
This new investigation into X by the European Commission began in December 2023, following the 'debate' streamed on X between Elon Musk and Alice Weidel, the leader of the Nazi-aligned AfD party. The European Commission monitored the live streamed debate for any potential manipulation of X’s content feeds. One could argue that Musk was also monitoring the investigation, making it appear fair to the investigators. Social media platforms can push content to specific users, profiling them and delivering highly tailored feeds.
There is no need for further investigation into whether he is favoring the German far-right party Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) ahead of the German elections on 23 February. This is already clear, and it should be enough to pressure the Commission to act urgently in banning X.
Unfortunately, the European Commission is still delaying the ban, with this latest request made to Musk on January 17, 2025. The EU’s executive branch informed Musk’s company that it expects to see internal documentation by the 15 February deadline. The EU Digital Commissioner, Henna Virkkunen, said in a statement on January 17, “Today, we are taking further steps to shed light on the compliance of X’s recommender systems with the obligations under the DSA”. Virkkunen implied that the EU still seeks to use its powers to ban or fine X if it is found to be in breach of 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,” she said. However, don’t we already know that X is in violation of those principles and rules?
Elon Musk doesn’t have a legal representative or an office for X in Europe since November 2022, shortly after he took over Twitter. He doesn’t provide transparency for advertising on X and restricts investigations into disinformation by limiting its API. These are all provisions of the DSA that X has been violating for years! Should we still allow Musk to flout European rules?
Musk is likely to falsify any documents related to this new investigation. Along with the request for information on X’s recommender systems and any recent changes to its algorithms by 15 February, this new investigation has also issued a “retention order,” requiring the platform to preserve internal documents and information regarding future changes to the design and functioning of the recommender algorithm between 17 January 2025 and 31 December 2025.
In an initial investigation, the Commission last July accused X of violating the DSA mainly in three areas: failing to meet the law’s transparency requirements on advertising; failing to protect users from the so-called blue-tick “verification” system, which has opened the door to scammers; and allowing access to the commercial interface and data through its API, which researchers need to investigate content manipulation and suggestions on X.
Elon Musk’s non-compliance with these DSA provisions could lead the Court of Justice of the European Union to impose fines of up to 6 percent of the annual global turnover of the platform X or hopefully a complete ban of X across all Europe.
Ultimately, if the Commission doesn’t dare to ban X, it might impose an arbitrary fine, which won't stop Musk spreading his anti-democracy propaganda. Still, Europe is in this dangerous situation because all the revenues from these fines levied on big-tech firms (which, over the years, have amounted to billions) were not reinvested in alternative social media platforms to strengthen Europe’s digital sovereignty.
In light of these considerations, we urge the European Commission to take decisive and immediate action to ban X and use the banning and fines against Musk to invest in fair, alternative social media platforms based in Europe, free from Musk’s influence.
Sign the petition to BAN X in Europe here:
https://www.change.org/p/ban-x-in-europe-elon-musk-must-be-stopped-in-eu
Join the campaign BAN X in EU here:
https://BAN-X-in.EU