Around 150 experts will check whether Musk’s Livestream Interview boosts the German extreme right in Brussels and Seville.

The powerful European tech regulators are watching Elon Musk’s interview with Alice Weidel, the German far-right leader on X Thursday night for any possible violation of EU law.

The banter will be of less concern to them than how Musk’s platform and algorithm distributes the livestream. It has more than 100,000,000 EU users. They’ll also be assessing whether X is giving Weidel’s Alternative for Germany party (AfD), an unfair advantage over its competitors.

Musk’s interview is just weeks away from Germany’s general elections on February 23. The anti-immigration AfD is currently polling in second place. Musk recently described the group as “the last spark of hope” in Germany, leading to widespread accusations of electoral interference.

Up to 150 European Commission officials will be in Brussels and Seville to help determine if Musk’s social networking site complies with the tech rules of the European Union. The investigators have extensive investigative powers, allowing them to enter X’s offices to request access to the algorithm and internal correspondence.

Experts from the European Centre for Algorithmic Transparency (ECAT) in Spain assist the enforcers at the DG CONNECT Tech department of the Commission, based in Brussels, who are responsible for the Digital Services Act.

The evidence gathered on Thursday night could bolster EU’s historic case against X in the DSA. The EU formally accused Musk’s platform of failing to comply with EU rules in July, and is now finalizing its verdict — the first-ever under the DSA.

Do not expect an answer by Friday morning. Fining X could trigger a diplomatic conflict with Donald Trump’s incoming administration, which has Musk as a close adviser.

In the end, the decision to act or not will be made at the highest level of the Commission, the political level.

Henna Vikkunen, the EU’s tech czar, and Michael McGrath, her colleague in the Commission, told legislators this week via a letter that they plan to “energetically progress with the case” to “come to an early conclusion legally possible.”

The Commission has not yet imposed any DSA penalties. Regulators could fine companies up to 6 percent of their global revenue and order them to fix any problems. Officials can put a firm on “an enhanced surveillance period to ensure compliance” and fine them daily until they comply.

Boosting the algorithm

Digital enforcers in the EU have said that they are focusing on whether Musk is able to manipulate the X algorithm for his benefit, by boosting content of his or possibly giving the AfD leader a bigger platform and degrading rival content. This would be a violation of EU social media laws and considered unfair.

How much will [it] be increased? Thomas Regnier, spokesperson for the Commission, told reporters Monday that this is what they will be looking at.

The Commission will be closely watching how X complies with the DSA. This is a law which requires platforms to remove illegal content, to act against misinformation and to identify and address threats to public discourse and elections.

X is a platform so large that it falls under the direct supervision and control of the EU’s digital department DG CONNECT. In December 2023 the DSA targeted the social media platform, which was followed by a probe in July that led to charges for misleading users, lack of transparency and failure to share certain public data.

Regnier told POLITICO the DSA enforcement team of the Commission could decide to expand the investigation and send new access requests based on the way the algorithm handled AfD’s livestream.

Shiny new powers

Researchers have noted that the Commission has now “shiny new” additional powers to determine whether the stream received a boost.

Mathias Vermeulen is the public policy director of the AWO Agency.

Vermeulen cited media reports that suggested when Musk’s post on the Super Bowl in 2023 received less engagement than one from U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s post, Musk’s inner-circle took the issue to Slack to rally a group of engineers to increase his reach.

If a similar incident occurs now, the EU executive may look for such correspondence.

Vermeulen stated that “the [European Commission] could request messages which are publicly posted on Slack.”

You can also dissect the platform’s algorithm for recommendations.

The EU’s social media law places additional transparency requirements on platforms that use recommender systems. The EU’s algorithm specialists in Seville, a group of 30 people, can analyze how platforms decide what to promote.

Vermeulen said that the Commission could check to see if Alice Weidel or any other users received a score based on a multiplier for power users in its algorithmic recommendations.

A high score can give an individual’s posts greater exposure.

Last year, a study conducted at Queensland University found that X may have altered its algorithm in order to increase the reach and engagement for Musk’s tweets.

Self-promotion: a test

Musk has become a leading ally of Donald Trump in the United States, and has made heated remarks about European politics. European politicians and legislators have responded by pressing the Commission into investigating his possible self promotion.

Damian Boeselager, a German Greens MEP, told POLITICO that he had asked Virkkunen, a Finnish expert, to investigate the matter.

The Commission can also rely on civil society groups and researchers to watch the live stream of Thursday’s event.

Eliska Pirkova is a senior policy analyst with digital rights group Access Now. She said that “there will be many expert organizations [that] have the capability regarding data scraping, data analysis and [that] [will] be following [the event].

They might find it difficult to do so. Last July, the Commission criticized X because they failed to provide researchers with access to public datasets.

Pirkova stated that “this already creates significant barriers to transparency and, if there is not enough transparency, then there can’t be enough accountability.”