EU Commission urged to act over Elon Musk’s ‘interference’ in elections
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MEPs say enforcement of Digital Services Acts has been ‘too slow’, as Musk plans livestream with German far-right politician. The EU executive has been “too slow” in enforcing a major law intended to ensure good behaviour of social media companies, MEPs have said, amid growing concern about the aggressive forays of Elon Musk into European politics.
Pressure on the European Commission to act is growing as Musk, the X owner and world’s richest man, prepares to host a livestream conversation on the platform on Thursday with the leader of the far-right Alternative for Deutschland, Alice Weidel. The conversation with Musk, whose website claims he has 211.4 million followers, is seen as handing a significant advantage to the AfD as Germany prepares for elections on 23 February.
Damian Boeselager, an MEP, co-founder of the pan-European Volt party and candidate for the Bundestag in the German election, has written to the Commission urging it to examine Musk’s “interference” in European elections. The MEP wants the Commission to investigate whether X’s apparent promotion of Musk’s tweets is legal under the EU’s Digital Services Act, which came into force in 2022.
Speaking to the Guardian, Boeselager said the system used to amplify Musk’s tweets was “probably illegal under the DSA”, because he believes it fails to meet the law’s transparency requirements. He became aware that the X algorithm had been reconfigured to promote Musk’s tweets after a report in tech news site Platformer last February that Musk later appeared to confirm, by posting a meme about forcing followers to consume his tweets.
