The European Union announced a formal investigation into Elon Musk’s X social media platform Monday, suggesting the website may have run afoul of several provisions of the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA) passed in 2022.
A press release on the body’s website claimed the investigation would relate to content moderation, risk management, “information manipulation,” data transparency, and alleged “deceptive design” of the platform relating to the “Blue check” subscription feature.
“Today’s opening of formal proceedings against X makes it clear that, with the DSA, the time of big online platforms behaving like they are ‘too big to care’ has come to an end,” said Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton. “We now have clear rules, ex ante obligations, strong oversight, speedy enforcement, and deterrent sanctions and we will make full use of our toolbox to protect our citizens and democracies.”
“We will now start an in-depth investigation of X’s compliance with the DSA obligations concerning countering the dissemination and amplification of illegal content and disinformation in the EU, transparency of the platforms and design of the user interface,” Breton added.
The announcement marks an escalation of the war of words taking place between EU officials and Musk since the tech mogul bought the social media platform previously known as Twitter last year. A self-styled champion of free speech, Musk reduced content moderation on the platform and unbanned several controversial accounts, most recently that of radio show host Alex Jones.
Musk’s moves relating to the San Francisco-based social media giant have put him at odds with regulators throughout Europe, where expression is often regulated to a greater degree than in the United States.
In recent months, several high-profile advertisers have left the X platform in response to a demonstrated rise in incendiary content on the site, including from neo-Nazis and alleged terrorist groups.
Germany, often considered the most powerful country within the EU, takes a particularly strong pro-Israel stance and has arrested scores of protesters at “unauthorized” pro-Palestine demonstrations. France also banned pro-Palestine marches entirely for a time and continues to crack down on demonstrations on a “case-by-case” basis.
“This is how his [Breton’s] censorship industrial regime works,” said American journalist and free speech advocate Glenn Greenwald, referring to Breton as “the EU’s chief censor.”
“They seize on every alleged crisis to justify new censorship: Russiagate, COVID, Jan 6, the war in Ukraine,” Greenwald remarked in a social media thread. “He's [Breton] been threatening to use their new online censorship law against all Big Tech platforms, but is focusing on X due to perceived political vulnerabilities of Musk.”
Critics claim a panic over “disinformation” is being used to tighten control over online discourse, especially since events like the election of Donald Trump in 2016 and the UK’s vote to leave the European Union shocked establishment politicians in the West. A recently-released European Commission study focused on an alleged rise in “Russian disinformation” on the X platform in 2023, suggesting the bloc’s concern over “safeguarding” users extends to protecting them from narratives and information disfavored by traditional power centers.
Despite Musk’s rhetoric, a recent report found his X platform is actually complying with more government requests to remove content than before he took over the social media giant. The report found that X has fully complied with more than 80% of government and court takedown requests, compared to about 50% of requests that were complied with previously.
*Facebook and its parent company Meta is outlawed as an extremist organization in Russia.