‘X’ logo is seen on the top of the headquarters of the messaging platform X, in downtown San Francisco, California, U.S., July 30, 2023. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
BERLIN, Feb 7 (Reuters) – Elon Musk’s social media platform X must release information enabling researchers to track the spread of election-swaying information on the network, a German court ruled on Friday.
The Berlin district court issued its ruling in response to an urgent filing brought earlier this week by two civil rights groups who said they need the data to let them track misinformation and disinformation ahead of Germany’s February 23 national election.
“Waiting any longer for access to the data would undermine the applicants’ research project since the period immediately before the election is crucial,” the court said in a ruling seen by Reuters.
X had not responded to a court request for information, the court added, ordering the company to bear the 6,000 euro ($6,200) cost of proceedings.
“This is a huge success for freedom to research and for our democracy,” said Simone Ruf, a lawyer at the German Society for Civil Rights (GFF), one of the plaintiffs.
X did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The GFF and Democracy Reporti
21 Comments
_trampeltier
"Other platforms have granted us access to systematically track public debates on their platforms, but X has refused to do so," said DRI's Michael Meyer-Resende in a statement on Wednesday, announcing the lawsuit.
What others share just info for free?
black_puppydog
I mean, it's great to get some stuff on the record (and as a German myself I see our courts as one of the stronger checks on power in general, they've been imperfect but overall pretty reliable).
But I'm not sure what the researchers are trying to find that's not already in plain sight. By now it's pretty clear that the network is actively driving discourse in one specific direction. And with Musk's involvement in the US admin, it's even more officially a non-friendly foreign actor than tiktok is.
juancn
From TFA:
This looks like a Pyrrhic victory to me.
lysace
Thinking about the probable next steps made me remember that time Germany temporarily prohibited wikipedia.de from pointing to the actual Wikipedia when an article there said that the German politician Lutz Heilmann had been a full-time Stasi (the infamous and insanely brutal secret police) employee in the former DDR.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia#German…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutz_Heilmann
efitz
Germany (and the entire EU) are complete hypocrites about data privacy.
“Privacy for me, but not for thee” appears to be the operative principle.
And it’s completely random. Transnational businesses have to expend enormous time and effort complying with privacy, right to be forgotten, data sovereignty, GDPR, etc. and then random courts and bureaucratic agency rulings carve out exceptions wherever they feel like.
I’m not excusing X for failing to respond to a court order, I’m just pointing out that the order itself was ad hoc and inconsistent like many others.
tiahura
It’s refreshing to have a president that won’t standby while American companies are routinely harassed by Europeon bureaucrats.
They’re going to find that Europe is much more dependent on access to US markets than vice versa. I would imagine top folks at LVMH and VW have to recognize the perilous course their governments have taken.
mmooss
Into the 1920s and early 1930s, Germany seems to have been a/the center of research, culture, etc. The rise of the Nazis shut down research that conflicted with their political goals and researchers left for free countries, especially the US. The US, perhaps the only wealthy place on earth after WWII – it devastated Europe – has been the center of research and culture since then.
Now in the US, right-wing powers have campaigned to shut down disinformation research, often via lawfare and apparently via influence on major universities. Also, the Trump administration has made clear it is against much scientific research, especially when results conflict with political goals, and has already interfered in significant ways with research (and also culture). I think the Trump administration would agree with that description.
There's no war yet that will devastate the US economically, but the Trump administration is willing to risk that. Even without a war, it's not hard to imagine disinformation researchers moving to Europe now, and also scientists and also artists generally. Again, I think the Trump administration would endorse that.
fred_is_fred
How is Germany going to enforce this? President Musk doesn't seem to be subject to any laws to me.
blackeyeblitzar
> The GFF and Democracy Reporting International had argued that X had a duty under European law to provide easily researchable, collated access to information such as post reach, shares and likes – information theoretically available by laboriously clicking through thousands of posts but in practice impossible to access.
What law requires this? That data seems interesting, but it also seems odd to require a private platform to provide it. Is this directly legislated in the EU, or is this some kind of technicality?
hereme888
Why would a private US company be ordered to provide anything to researchers just because others do it? What's the logic behind this?
qwertox
> At the heart of this case was the enforcement of a new legal provision under the DSA: the right to access research data (Article 40(12) DSA). This provision requires large online platforms to provide researchers with immediate access to publicly available data on their platforms in order to assess systemic risks. The lawsuit has also helped clarify open legal questions regarding the judicial enforceability of this right in Germany. [0]
Why would anyone living in a democracy be against this?
Also, maybe this linked article would be a better one that the one from Reuters.
[0] https://democracy-reporting.org/en/office/EU/news/court-orde…
sunshine-o
I still remember the time before the Internet, I can assure you the world was full of disinformation and misinformation, I believe way more than today.
Everywhere, in schools, in cafes, the bus stop people would tell you crazy things and people would argue about whether it is true or not.
If you really wanted to settle it you would need to find an encyclopedia, but most of the time you would need to go to a public library and find a book or go through microfilms for hours, make a copy and show it to everybody to fight disinformation.
Depending on the country, the government had a tight or tighter control on what was in that library.
Some country would also tightly control what was said in a bar or cafe like in East Germany.
So thinking we are in a life threatening misinformation epidemic is just false if you compare to just a few decades ago.
krick
TBH, while I would like Twitter to be obligated to provide access to any data to anyone, I don't really understand on what grounds the decision was made. I mean, I wouldn't ask, if it was an USA court, where it's considered normal that any stupid judge can make any stupid decision, and it is called a precedent and must be respected. But in Germany there are laws, right? At least, theoretically. I mean, I personally don't believe in that, but any court decision is supposed be almost a natural consequence of the existing laws. So what is the law that makes a company obligated to do some work for free and send your data to some "researchers"? Honestly, I just don't like how it sounds, I kinda prefer libertarian anarchy, unrestrained mayhem and total impunity of various Musks to that kind of stuff.
jonas21
I thought we decided giving researchers access to social network data was a bad thing after the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
srameshc
Righteously, the German government has the right to enforce the law and Elon will certainly now not like this government even more. That gives him more reasons to team up with the right wing to have his way in the world's third largest economy so he can run the world the way he likes it.
jstummbillig
In this thread: An alarming number of people somehow perplexed by the concept of sovereign nations and local laws.
croemer
Here are FAQs on the EU law that was applied here: https://algorithmic-transparency.ec.europa.eu/news/faqs-dsa-…
hnpolicestate
"researchers" = German stasi working to defame democratic parties in opposition to the establishment. How is Der Spiegel going to write a hit piece on the AFD liking a wrong think tweet, or following a bad person, without these government "researchers".
iamacyborg
Everyone seems to be forgetting that the Mueller report was a thing and this type of research is fairly critical in ensuring there’s no foul play in elections from foreign interests.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20…
helge9210
„Genossen, wir müssen alles wissen“ (if you know, what I mean)
Anon84
Let me chime in quickly, from the perspective of someone who worked for a few years on Twitter data (see https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=rtKaL18AAAAJ&hl=en…).
The Twitter API used to be extremely open way back in the day. This proved to be a boon for all kinds of social (and not so social) science research. In my mind, this was also one of the reasons for Twitter early growth as it made it trivial to build apps that interact with it. Over the years, the API got increasingly closed, making research in this area extremely difficult.
On the plus side, a decision like this can bring back the good old days of easy access for researchers. The down side, of course, is that it's almost impossible to define "researcher" in a way that prevents Cambridge Analytica like abuses from occurring again (not that the current owner is particularly interested in preventing them)