ReportWire

Tag: The European Commission

  • Elon Musk says X’s new algorithm will be made open source next week

    X may soon provide more insight into how its algorithm works. On Saturday, Elon Musk posted on the platform to say that the company “will make the new X algorithm, including all code used to determine what organic and advertising posts are recommended to users, open source in 7 days.”

    X’s recommendation algorithm has been the subject of investigations by France and the European Commission, the latter of which recently extended through 2026 a retention order that it sent to the company at the beginning of last year. And scrutiny into the platform, along with demands for accountability, have only increased after its chatbot, Grok, was caught generating CSAM at users’ requests and continues to be used to digitally undress women nonconsensually.

    Elon Musk’s X post about open-sourcing the algorithm. (Screenshot/X)

    Musk has been making promises of open-sourcing the algorithm since his takeover of Twitter, and in 2023 published the code for the site’s “For You” feed on GitHub. But the code wasn’t all that revealing, leaving out key details, according to analyses at the time. And it hasn’t been kept up to date. Of the making the new algorithm open source, Musk said in his post, “This will be repeated every 4 weeks, with comprehensive developer notes, to help you understand what changed.”

    Cheyenne MacDonald

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  • EU charges Meta and TikTok over failures to tackle illegal content

    The European Commission has found that Meta and TikTok had violated rules under the Digital Services Act (DSA) and is now giving them the chance to comply if they don’t want to be fined up to 6 percent of their total worldwide annual turnover. According to the Commission, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok have “put in place burdensome procedures and tools” for researchers who want to request access to public data. This means they’re stuck with incomplete or unreliable information if they want to do research on topics like how minors are exposed to illegal or harmful content online. “Allowing researchers access to platforms’ data is an essential transparency obligation under the DSA,” the Commission wrote.

    In addition, the Commission is charging Meta over the lack of a user-friendly mechanism that would allow users to easily report posts with illegal content, such as child sexual abuse materials. The Commission explained that Facebook and Instagram use mechanisms that require several steps to be able to flag posts, and they use dark interface designs that make reporting confusing and dissuading. All those factors are in breach of DSA rules that require online platforms to give EU users easy-to-use mechanisms to be able to report illegal content.

    Under the DSA, users must also be able to challenge social networks’ decisions to remove their posts or suspend their accounts. The Commission found that neither Facebook nor Instagram allow users to explain their sides or provide evidence to substantiate their appeals, which limits the effectiveness of the appeal process.

    Meta and TikTok will be able to examine the Commission’s investigation files and to reply in writing about its findings. They’ll also have the opportunity to implement changes to comply with DSA rules, and it’s only if the Commission decides they’re non-compliant that they can be fined up to 6 percent of their global annual turnover. Meta disagreed that it had breached DSA rules, according to Financial Times. “In the European Union, we have introduced changes to our content reporting options, appeals process, and data access tools since the DSA came into force and are confident that these solutions match what is required under the law in the EU,” it said in a statement. Meanwhile, TikTok said it was reviewing the Commission’s findings but that “requirements to ease data safeguards place the DSA and GDPR in direct tension.” It’s asking regulators for guidance on “how these obligations should be reconciled.”

    Mariella Moon

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  • EU fines Google $3.5 billion over adtech antitrust violations

    The European Commission has announced that it will fine Google €2.95 billion, or around $3.5 billion, for violating European Union antitrust laws and “distorting competition in the advertising technology industry.” The decision follows from earlier in 2025, where a US federal judge concluded that Google maintains a monopoly in online advertising technology.

    Google displays ads in search results, but it also has a dominant position as a software provider for online advertisers and publishers looking to sell ad space and place ads. The Commission’s main issue is with the way Google’s ad buying tools (Google Ads and DV 360) interact with its ad exchange software (AdX) and ad publisher servers (DFP) in seemingly preferential ways. Google appears to favor its AdX ad exchange by “informing AdX in advance of the value of the best bid from competitors which it had to beat to win the auction,” according to the Commission. It also found that “Google Ads was avoiding competing ad exchanges and mainly placing bids on AdX,” maintaining the dominance of Google’s ad exchange even if an alternative is a better option for advertisers.

    The Commission is giving Google 60 days to share how it plans to address those issues or face an “appropriate remedy” for violating antitrust law. That could just be the fine, but might also include a forced sale of some or all of Google’s adtech business.

    Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s Global Head of Regulatory Affairs, shared that the company will appeal the decision in the following statement provided to Engadget:

    “The European Commission’s decision about our ad tech services is wrong and we will appeal. It imposes an unjustified fine and requires changes that will hurt thousands of European businesses by making it harder for them to make money. There’s nothing anticompetitive in providing services for ad buyers and sellers, and there are more alternatives to our services than ever before.”

    $3.5 billion is a staggering amount of money, but it’s not technically the most Google’s been charged for violating EU laws. In 2018, the company was for forcing mobile network operators to pre-install Google apps on phones. Though Google has been under an increasing amount of scrutiny in the last decade for its business practices, it so far hasn’t faced many structural remedies for what has been called anticompetitive behavior.

    For example, a US court found Google was in 2024, but a judge that the company wouldn’t have to sell off Chrome or stop paying Apple to make Google the iPhone’s default search engine. EU regulators have historically been more persistent than their US counterparts, and the European Commission is for at least one other advertising-related issue, but it remains to be seen if there’s any punishment that will actually faze the company.

    Ian Carlos Campbell

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