Irish watchdog opens content moderation probe on Elon Musk’s X

Elon Musk-owned social media platform X is being investigated by Ireland’s Coimisiún na Meán under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), the internet watchdog announced on Wednesday. 

Coimisiún na Meán said the investigation will look into whether users are able to appeal content removal decisions taken by X, as the bloc’s online governance rulebook allows users to challenge platforms’ content moderation decisions. 

The Irish regulator will investigate whether users are able to properly appeal decisions by X not to remove content that users have reported as violating the platform’s terms and conditions.

The investigation will also look into whether X’s users are properly informed of the outcome of content reports and whether the company has an easily accessible internal complaints handling system.

Coimisiún na Meán can apply an administrative penalty of up to 6% of X’s annual turnover if the platform is found to have violated the DSA. 

“Following our supervision of X, and analysis of information gathered from a variety of sources, there is reason to suspect that X may not be in compliance with their [DSA] obligations,” said John Evans, Digital Services Commissioner at Coimisiún na Meán, in a press statement sent to Euractiv.

The investigation is being conducted under Ireland’s Broadcasting Act, a long-standing piece of broadcasting legislation which was amended to incorporate the EU’s DSA into national law in 2024.

The European Commission is also investigating X for a range of suspected violations of the DSA’s rules for larger platforms, which the EU’s executive oversees, although it has not finalised any probes on X, nor – consequently – issued any penalties.

But, in July 2024, the Commission found that X had preliminarily breached the DSA in relation to the blue check-mark it displays – a system which used to denote verified users but was changed under Musk to denote users that are paying for premium accounts.

(nl)