Pressure
mounts on EU to use legal weapons against Musk’s interference
European
Commission says it will study whether X gives unfair boost to far right in
German election.
January 7, 2025 4:20 am CET
By Pieter Haeck and Nicholas Vinocur
What are you waiting for, Brussels?
Elon Musk’s decision to host German far-right leader Alice
Weidel in a livestream on X is sparking fury from European Union leaders and
lawmakers, who on Monday urged Brussels to deploy its full legal might to rein
in the billionaire tech magnate.
In response, the European Commission said the SpaceX founder
and senior member of the incoming Trump administration could indeed land in
legal hot water under the terms of the EU’s new digital rulebook, depending on
the extent to which the Thursday livestream is deemed to boost Weidel unfairly
over rivals ahead of Germany’s Feb. 23 election.
Across Europe, teaming up with Weidel is seen as an
inflammatory step as members of her populist and anti-immigration Alternative
for Germany (AfD) party have for years been accused of whitewashing and
trivializing Nazi crimes. The AfD is currently polling second.
French President Emmanuel Macron was quick to accuse Musk of
having gone too far in his vocal support for the AfD. “Ten years ago, who could
have imagined it if we had been told that the owner of one of the largest
social networks in the world would support a new international reactionary
movement and intervene directly in elections, including in Germany,” he said in
a speech at the Elysée Palace.
The pressure is now on the European Commission to respond,
given that it is in charge of enforcing Europe’s Digital Services Act, which
polices social media platforms including X, and threatens eye-watering fines of
up to 6 percent of global turnover, or even temporary blocks, in case of a
breach.
Unfair
advantage
The key problem that Musk would face legally under the DSA
concerns not so much content as the extent to which exposure on a platform as
large as X would give the AfD an unfair public advantage over its rivals before
a vote.
Former EU digital enforcer Thierry Breton said Saturday that
Weidel will be offered a “significant and valuable advantage” over her
competitors and reminded Musk to adhere to his EU social media law obligations.
German Greens MEP Alexandra Geese defined the problem as
follows: “Elon Musk chatting with AfD leader Alice Weidel on X is covered by
freedom of expression. His algorithmic manipulation, [which] is intentionally
flooding German X timelines with far-right propaganda and drowning out
progressive content, is not.”
When confronted by such questions as to whether Musk could
improperly boost Weidel’s political agenda with Thursday’s livestream,
Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said there was a special burden on very
large platforms regarding presenting content that posed “risks for electoral
processes.”
“'How much is [it] or will it be boosted?' This is what the
Commission will be looking at,” he said, noting that Brussels had already been
studying X’s compliance with the DSA for more than a year.
Regnier added that the Commission, German regulators and X
would meet for a roundtable discussion Jan. 24 to discuss risks related to the
February election.
Brussels has already had its fair share of run-ins with
Musk. Breton himself notoriously received a meme from Musk instructing him to
“f*** your own face.”
Political
will
Pursuing legal action against a major tech tycoon would be
tricky enough, but the EU's headaches are exacerbated by the fact that in 13
days’ time, Musk will become part of the United States administration as head
of the Department of Government Efficiency.
“Musk must be seen as representing the U.S. president when
he bets against the leadership of key European nations, allies until now,”
former member of the European Parliament and Stanford University fellow
Marietje Schaake wrote in an email.
Quite simply, by threatening probes or even a fine, the EU
now risks a major confrontation with the Washington administration.
“Whether the EU Commission chooses to act will depend on a
combination of technical evidence and political will,” said Felix Kartte, a
senior fellow at Germany’s Mercator Foundation. “The question is essentially
whether EU leaders are prepared to choose confrontation with the Trump
administration before it has formally taken office.”
Despite the political dimension, Kartte argued there could
still be a case for Musk to answer.
“If Musk’s engineered prominence generates public risks,
such as amplifying illegal hate speech or undermining media pluralism,
regulators could argue that X is failing its risk mitigation obligations under
the DSA,” he said.
In the European Parliament, some are also pushing Brussels
to check whether Musk’s actions are legal under the DSA.
In a question addressed to the Commission’s tech czar, Henna
Virkkunen, German European lawmaker Damian Boeselager raised concerns about
Musk’s possible use of a multiplier for his content, which would mean “he
undermined the neutrality of the algorithm for the benefit of his own reach.”
“What I’m trying to find out is if Musk is using a large
information platform that he owns in ways which could diminish the freedom of
speech of others, by hard-coding a multiplier into his own reach,” he clarified
in remarks shared with POLITICO.
Other lawmakers have expressed their concerns about Musk’s
use of X to supercharge his own visibility, urging Brussels to investigate.
The burden of enforcing the DSA now falls to Virkkunen, who
took over from Breton after his resignation last summer. Breton had faced
pushback from his colleagues inside the EU executive after addressing a letter
to Musk warning him of potential consequences for boosting certain parties or
figures.
Breton may have left Brussels, but he hasn’t gone quiet
about Musk.
On the contrary, he has once again warned both Weidel and
Musk about their upcoming livestream, urging his platform to “fully respect all
its obligations under our EU law.”
