LONDON — The European Union on Monday made Elon Musk’s online platform X the first tech company to be investigated under tough new European rules designed to clean up social media and protect people from toxic online content.
“Today we are opening formal infringement proceedings against @X” under the Digital Services Act, European Commissioner Thierry Breton said in a post on the platform formerly known as Twitter. Musk responded by questioning whether the EU would scrutinise other social media sites.
The 27-nation bloc is stepping up pressure on X after asking the company in October for information on its handling of hate speech, misinformation and violent terrorist content related to the Israel-Hamas war. The case is the first test of the Digital Services Directive, part of a landmark set of EU rules designed to curb the power of tech companies.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, “will now investigate X’s systems and policies in relation to certain suspected infringements” of the DSA, spokesman Johannes Bahrke told a press briefing in Brussels. “It does not prejudge the outcome of the investigation.”
The San Francisco-based social media platform says it is “committed to complying with the Digital Services Act and is cooperating with the regulatory process. It is important that this process remains free of political influence and follows the law.”
“X is focused on creating a safe and inclusive environment for all users on our platform while protecting freedom of expression, and we will continue to work tirelessly towards that goal,” the company said in a statement.
Musk has touted the platform as a place where free speech can flourish, but changes the billionaire Tesla CEO made to the site after buying it a year ago – such as cutting the number of content moderators and reinstating banned accounts of divisive public figures – have alienated users and advertisers, who have fled in fear of hate speech appearing alongside their ads. He has also pulled the platform out of a voluntary EU pact against disinformation.
The EU investigation will look at whether X has failed to do enough to curb the spread of illegal content – such as hate speech or incitement to terrorism – to its 112 million users in Europe.
This includes the effectiveness of X’s tools for users to flag illegal material in posts and ads so that it can be quickly removed, as well as whether the company follows its own policies for restricting “sensitive content”.
The investigation will also examine whether X’s measures to combat “information manipulation”, in particular through its crowd-sourced fact-checking feature Community Notes, have been effective within the European Union.
Transparency is another area of investigation. The EU said there were “suspected shortcomings” in researchers’ access to X’s “publicly available data” as well as its advertising database, both of which are required by the DSA.
Finally, the investigation will look at whether users are being deceived by alleged “misleading design” of X’s interface, including for its Blue Check subscription service. The blue checkmarks used to indicate that the person or institution behind an account was genuine, such as a celebrity, athlete or journalist, but now simply indicate that someone is paying $8 a month to have their posts elevated above those of unchecked users.
“Are you cracking down on other social media?” Musk tweeted in response to Breton. “Because if you have these problems with this platform, and none are perfect, the others are much worse.”
The EU has named X as the worst place online for fake news, and officials have warned owner Musk to do more to clean it up.
Now it’s taking official action under the Digital Services Act, a set of wide-ranging rules designed to keep users safe online and stop the spread of harmful content that’s either illegal or violates a platform’s terms of service, such as promoting genocide or anorexia.
A number of major tech companies faced increased scrutiny after the DSA came into force earlier this year, with the threat of fines of up to 6% of their global turnover – which could amount to billions – or even being banned from the EU.
Fines are seen as a last resort, however, and Brussels could first use “interim measures” to force companies to comply.
There’s no deadline for a decision on the X investigation, and the Commission said it would continue to gather evidence, conduct interviews and carry out inspections.