European Union investigating Musk's X over possible breaches of social media law

The European Union is looking into whether Elon Musk’s online platform X breached tough new social media regulations

LONDON -- The European Union is looking into whether Elon Musk’s online platform X breached tough new social media regulations in the first such investigation since the rules designed to make online content less toxic took effect.

“Today we open formal infringement proceedings against @X” under the Digital Services Act, European Commissioner Thierry Breton said Monday in a post on the platform formerly known as Twitter.

“The Commission will now investigate X’s systems and policies related to certain suspected infringements,” spokesman Johannes Bahrke told a press briefing in Brussels. “It does not prejudge the outcome of the investigation.”

The investigation will look into whether X failed to do enough to curb the spread of illegal content and whether measures to combat “ information manipulation," especially through its crowd-sourced Community Notes fact-checking feature, were effective.

The 27-nation EU also will examine whether X was transparent enough with researchers and will look into suspicions that its user interface, including for its blue check subscription service, has a “deceptive design.”