French investigators have opened a probe into social media platform X over allegations that the company owned by billionaire Elon Musk manipulated its algorithm, the Paris public prosecutor’s office said on Friday.
In a written response to POLITICO, the prosecutor’s office said the investigation followed a “report from a member of parliament dated January 12, 2025, denouncing biased algorithms in the operation of X as likely to have distorted the operation of an automated data processing system,” confirming an earlier report by French media.
The member of parliament behind the complaint is centrist lawmaker Eric Bothorel.
The investigation comes a few days before the AI Summit in Paris, where Musk has been invited and which U.S. Vice President JD Vance will attend.
The news came a day after X, formerly known as Twitter, suffered a legal defeat in Germany, where a court ruled on Thursday that the platform must immediately provide researchers with access to data on politically related content ahead of the country’s Feb. 23 election.
The German court decision, seen by POLITICO, raises fresh questions about X’s compliance with European regulations ahead of Germany’s federal election and marks one of the first major judicial tests of the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA).
Chris Lunday and Eliza Gkritsi contributed to this report.
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