Paris prosecutors probe X over algorithmic distortions

Paris prosecutors have launched an investigation into Elon Musk’s social media platform X over alleged algorithmic distortions, the prosecutor’s office said. The investigation was launched after Eric Batorel, a member of parliament for the centrist Ensemble Pour La Republique (EPR) party, said on January 12 that X was using biased algorithms. He sent a letter to the Cyber ​​J3 prosecutor’s office on January 2 about the matter, reported by Reuters.

The Paris prosecutor’s office believes that the algorithms likely distorted the operation of an automated data processing system. Magistrates and specialist assistants from the cybercrime unit are analyzing it and conducting initial technical checks.

German civil society activists against X Mask

Elon Musk’s social media platform X must publish information that will allow researchers to track the spread of election-influencing information online, a German court ruled on Friday. The Berlin district court issued its ruling in response to an urgent application filed earlier this week by two human rights groups. They said they needed the data to allow them to track disinformation and misinformation ahead of Germany’s national elections on February 23.

Waiting longer for access to the data would undermine the research, as the period immediately before the election is crucial, the court said. X did not respond to the court’s request for information, the court added, ordering the company to pay $6,200 in legal costs. This is a huge win for freedom of research and for our democracy, said Simone Ruf, a lawyer for the German Society for Civil Liberties (GFF) and one of the plaintiffs.

AfD and Elon Musk

The GFF and Democracy Reporting International argued that under European law X is obliged to provide easily searchable, collated access to information such as reach, shares and likes. That is, information that is theoretically available by painstakingly sifting through thousands of publications, but in practice impossible to access.

The regulation obliges X to make the data available from now until shortly after the election. The spread of disinformation on X is of particular interest to German left-wing populists. They point to Musk’s support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which came in second in the polls after the conservatives.