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Brussels has ordered Elon Musk to fully disclose recent changes made to X recommendations, prompting an investigation into the social media platform's role in European politics.
It calls for an expanded investigation by the European Commission, announced on Friday X forward internal documents related to the recommendation algorithm. The commission also issued a “preservation order” for all relevant documents related to how the algorithm might be changed in the future.
In addition, the EU regulator requested access to information about how the social network moderates and distributes content.
The move follows complaints from German politicians that Algorithm X is promoting far-right content ahead of the country's February 23 election. Musk spoke out for the nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, saying he would save Germany.
Asked if the expanded investigation was a response to a controversial conversation Musk had with AfD co-leader Alicia Weidel last week, a Commission spokesman said the new request helped us “monitor the systems around all these events that are happening.”
But he said it was “completely independent of any political considerations or specific events”.
“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,” said Henna Virkkunen, the Commission's digital chief.
X did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This is a developing story
