The EU Commission broadened its investigation into social networking service X Friday, addressing three additional technical investigatory measures relating to the platform’s recommender system.
The fact-finding steps take place within the scope of formal proceedings opened by the Commission on 18 December 2023 under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA).
The DSA is a set of rules that apply to digital services in the EU, whose aim is to create a safer online environment by protecting users’ fundamental rights and establishing a level playing field.
Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, Henna Virkkunen, said: “Today we are taking further steps to shed light on the compliance of X’s recommender systems with the obligations under 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.”
First, the Commission is requesting the company to provide internal documentation on its recommender systems and any recent changes made to it, by 15 February 2025.
In addition, a ‘retention order’ requires the platform to preserve internal documents and information regarding future changes to the design and functioning of its recommender algorithms, for the period between 17 January 2025 and 31 December 2025, unless the Commission’s ongoing investigation is concluded beforehand.
Finally, the EU executive has issued a request for access to certain of X’s commercial APIs, technical interfaces to its content that allow direct fact-finding on content moderation and virality of accounts.
The Commission says these steps will allow its services to take all relevant facts into account in ‘the complex assessment under the DSA of systemic risks and their mitigation’.
