Following high-profile accusations of undue political influence in Brazil and Germany, France has launched a criminal investigation into Elon Musk's X.
Magistrate Laure Beccuau said in a statement Friday that prosecutors had launched the probe on Wednesday and were looking into whether the social media giant broke French law by altering its algorithms and fraudulently extracting data from users.
"X stands accused of the ‘alteration of the functioning of an automated data processing system by an organized group’
This would be the interference charge.
‘fraudulent extraction of data from an automated data processing system by an organized group.’
This would be the illegal gathering of user data charge.
Also a thing to remember is that while the US has Section 230 which protects sites like Twitter (never gonna call it X) from being responsible for what their user post, that is not the case in countries outside the US. Other countries can hold Twitter responsible for things their users post on the website.
As for my interpretations it seems the French government seems to think that Twitter has modified their algorithms to influence public opinion to affect elections or for other purposes.
So it seems they are being charged for altering their own algorithm. According to this article: https://www.politico.eu/article/france-opens-criminal-probe-into-x-for-algorithm-manipulation/
This would be the interference charge.
This would be the illegal gathering of user data charge.
Also a thing to remember is that while the US has Section 230 which protects sites like Twitter (never gonna call it X) from being responsible for what their user post, that is not the case in countries outside the US. Other countries can hold Twitter responsible for things their users post on the website.
As for my interpretations it seems the French government seems to think that Twitter has modified their algorithms to influence public opinion to affect elections or for other purposes.