Ahead of the German national elections last February, Musk declared, on X (ex-Twitter) :
- “If you are unhappy with the situation, you must vote for change, and that is why I’m really strongly recommending that people vote for AfD” in support of AfD.
- “Only the AfD can save Germany,” to reiterate his support while re-posting a video from far-right political activist Naomi Seibt.
A German court ruled that the platform must immediately provide researchers with access to data on politically related content. One of the first major judicial tests of the Digital Services Act (DSA) and specifically its Article 40 on data access and scrutiny.
Varying researches showed that the algorithmic recommender system on X favours AfD content massively and disproportionally (see for example here). This suggests that Musk instructed his staff to align the platform to his personal political believes and to directly interfere in the German elections on 23. February.
Furthermore, there is evidence of Russian interference and misinformation having been spread and amplified by AfD supporters ahead of the German national elections (see here).
The take-away is that social media platforms, with obscure algorithms and no active content moderation are a fertile territory for manipulation.
As pirates, we advocate and call for the effective enforcement of the Digital Services Act, to prevent electoral manipulation in a member state, including through the application of fines. Furthermore, we underline the critical importance of transparency in algorithms especially the ones used by social media as our collective attention is their main trade and for concrete defence mechanisms to be setup to ensure the personal and digital integrity of users, subjected without their knowledge or consent to hostile influence operations.
Authored by Paul Diegel and Florian Roussel
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