France launches criminal probe of X over alleged algorithm ‘manipulation’

https://www.ft.com/content/21818d23-71d7-45a4-ae8c-e7940f5d9e00

by aspenmayer • 1 year ago

42 154 1 year ago

ft.com

aspenmayer5• 1 year ago

Original title edited for length:

France has launched criminal probe of X over alleged algorithm ‘manipulation’, platform says

https://archive.is/wA7hr

sva_• 1 year ago

Does France have some laws how an algorithm is allowed to behave?

dev_l1x_be2• 1 year ago

According to the imaginatory rules of lawyers / bankers in power.

xyzal6• 1 year ago

Most countries have laws against foreign interference. I presume disproportionately propagating far-right content via algorithm might very well count as such an interference.

amelius3• 1 year ago

How do you prove it?

j3th9n• 1 year ago

Define disproportionately propagating far-right content.

dragonwriter3• 1 year ago

Apparently while accusations of "foreign interference" are part of the background of the investigation, the actual charges that are the main current focus of the criminal investigation are (roughly translated) modification of an automated data processing system by an organized gang, and fraudulent extraction of data from an automated data processing system by an organized gang.

https://www.tribunal-de-paris.justice.fr/sites/default/files...

poulpy1232• 1 year ago

I'm not overly familiar with the law and I'm not defending that (I despise both the government and Elon Musk) but there are indeed laws regulating speeches and on top of that laws are flexible and the politician's power over them is quite strong. They had no problem forbidding Russian tv channels in a few days back when the war in Ukraine started

CrlNvl• 1 year ago

Well, in a way yes. During an election day and the day before, you are not allowed to push official communication (ie a political party can tell you "Go vote" but not "Go vote for us because we will put a stop to immigration") be it via a website, email, mail, etc. See https://presidentielle2022.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/l-elec.... So a sponsored post from a political party appearing in your timeline would be an issue due to the platform if it ignores these rules.

johnecheck• 1 year ago

What constitutes illegal algorithm manipulation? What obligations to impartiality do digital space providers like Musk/X have?

Not sure what laws exist but it seems tricky to design a coherent legal standard around what sorts of algorithms are allowed. I'd rather just be able to choose between open-source algorithms, that way we can just not use the one that pushes {Billionaire}'s latest post to the top.

dev_l1x_be2• 1 year ago

Whatever the state does not like.

throw0101b3• 1 year ago

What constitutes illegal algorithm manipulation? What obligations to impartiality do digital space providers like Musk/X have?

From another comment that found the statute (in French):

* https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/id/LEGISCTA000006149839

rawling3• 1 year ago

Those all seem to me to be "altering a system against the wishes of the owners", hopefully not "altering a system you own against the wishes of the state".

(auto translation)

Fraudulently accessing or maintaining access to all or part of an automated data processing system is punishable by three years' imprisonment and a fine of €100,000.
Where this results in either the deletion or modification of data contained in the system, or an alteration of the functioning of this system, the penalty is five years' imprisonment and a fine of €150,000.

Unless I've missed something more specific lower down.

neonate• 1 year ago

https://archive.is/wA7hr

aredox16• 1 year ago

To answer the questions the first commenters already have but didn't bother to search for: the accusation is « altération du fonctionnement d’un système de traitement automatisé de données en bande organisée » and « extraction frauduleuse de données d’un système de traitement automatisé de données en bande organisée ».

https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/id/LEGISCTA000006149839

williamdclt4• 1 year ago

These are hard to translate as they're so long-winded, here's a try

altération du fonctionnement d’un système de traitement automatisé de données en bande organisée

Alteration/manipulation of a data processing system by an organised group of people.

extraction frauduleuse de données d’un système de traitement automatisé de données en bande organisée

Fraudulent data extraction from a data processing system

"organised group of people" is terrible translation, it means it's in the realm of organised crime.

rawling3• 1 year ago

Isn't this within the context of hacking a system, rather than making changes to a system you yourself own?

LightBug16• 1 year ago

Good. Personally, I hope France flushes Twitter down the Xitter and enables a model for other countries to do the same.

poulpy1232• 1 year ago

It's not that I like twitter but believing that the current government (or whatever one that is able to replace it) will give an interesting model providing both free speech and a reasonable regulation is a joke

LightBug16• 1 year ago

So, what you're saying is, that you expect the French government will be about as effective as Xitter senior leadership, and possibly worse. That's a fair point actually ...

jay-barronville2• 1 year ago

X isn't going anywhere.

throw0101b3• 1 year ago

Is this different than the investigation that was opened on July 11?

* https://www.lemonde.fr/en/pixels/article/2025/07/11/france-p...

* https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/11/france-is-investigating-x-...

* FR: https://www.tribunal-de-paris.justice.fr/sites/default/files...

jay-barronville2• 1 year ago

Based on all available evidence, I tend to agree with X that this "investigation" does, in fact, appear to be politically motivated. I don't see any substantive evidence to the contrary.

OtherShrezzing• 1 year ago

X are simultaneously saying they've not been made aware of the allegations, but that they deny the allegations, and that the allegations are politically motivated.

alexb_• 1 year ago

Ah, the good ol' "Epstein Strategy"

motorest3• 1 year ago

X are simultaneously saying they've not been made aware of the allegations, but that they deny the allegations, and that the allegations are politically motivated.

What a time we live in, where things like antisemitism and supremacist views are framed as mere political inclinations that are unreasonably threatened by other people, even minorities, having rights.

mcbrit3• 1 year ago

Yes? That is just obviously correct given the judicial system for hundreds of years.

I get why you are outraged, but also: inform yourself. This is exactly what even minimally competent defense does and should look like.

gruez5• 1 year ago

X are simultaneously saying they've not been made aware of the allegations

You're trying to imply there's some contradiction between the three statements, but there really isn't. For one, X never claimed "they've not been made aware of the allegations". The exact wording used in the article was "it “remains in the dark” about the specific allegations", which is different than not being aware of the allegations at all. Moreover it's not contradictory to deny allegations that you're not aware of the specifics about. For instance, if someone accused you of saying a racist thing, but didn't reference a specific incident, it'd be pretty reasonable to both claim you're "in the dark about the specific allegations", and to deny it. It'd also be reasonable to claim it's politically motivated, if for instance it was coming from someone you had beef with.

mcbrit3• 1 year ago

Louisiana is the only jurisdiction which does not adhere to the general rule that a defendant may rely, in a criminal prosecution, upon inconsistent defenses.

(In other words: prove it. I get as many counterexamples as my lawyers can dream .)

Robert T. McGraw, Criminal Law: The Use of Inconsistent Defenses, 26 Marq. L. Rev. 167 (1942).

retinaros19• 1 year ago

they are politically motivated. french gov wants a far-left researcher to investigate the algorithm. this guy was also famous for building a “leaveX” movement in france and there was a debate on the ties with CNRS and on wether they used public funding to campaign against X.

“ French authorities have requested access to X’s recommendation algorithm and real-time data about all user posts on the platform in order for several “experts” to analyze the data and purportedly “uncover the truth” about the operation of the X platform. One of those “experts” is David Chavalarias, who spearheads the “Escape X” campaign. Formerly known as “HelloQuitteX”, the campaign is dedicated to encouraging X users to leave the platform. A second “expert,” Maziyar Panahi, has previously participated in research projects with David Chavalarias that demonstrate open hostility towards X.”

archagon2• 1 year ago

Please define “far left.”

aredox16• 1 year ago

How dare that person enable people to leave a toxic social media platform! Clearly he is a far left saboteur, a Stalinist who want to burn the world and send people to gulags!

Only people who have no opinion on twitter and "Roman salute" Musk should be allowed to have a look at his algorithms!

storus7• 1 year ago

OK, so EU is allowed to manipulate social media under various threats, and now when some social media says enough of this, they are criminalized? And people are applauding it?

xyzal6• 1 year ago

Those threats are called "laws". We strive to the ideal of living in a society that respects laws. Twitter/X is free to leave if they don't like it, of course.

bluecalm• 1 year ago

Yeah but then laws need to be clear, understandable and possible to enforce fairly. What is X accused of specifically? "Algorithm manipulation" doesn't sound like a crime to me.

fzeroracer2• 1 year ago

Maybe we can ask Mecha Hitler what his opinions are on social media manipulation.

libertine6• 1 year ago

TV, Radio, Press, Outdoors, and every other media have laws and regulations - laws and regulations set by elected officials, that go through a transparent process, and for which people might disagree and vote out those elected officials. This ranges from the amount of advertising space, content, and political propaganda; everything has a set of rules and regulations.

Why is it ok for you to have a billionaire do whatever he wants, including spreading disinformation and propaganda, and allow for bot networks to spread propaganda from foreign agents, without any accountability?

Why should we have no rules for social media, while all the remaining media have to abide by laws and are held accountable for it?

Why should a billionaire have more power than the people who voted?

storus7• 1 year ago

Why should the billionaires that set the current EU social networking policy be more important than the lone billionaire that runs X? Or do you think these policies are organic and come from the EU population itself?

retinaros19• 1 year ago

he complies with those law and even proved it thousands of times. he even said it himself that he had to comply to country law and blocked/banned accounts french gov asked him to

Do you believe that your political opponents investigating an "algorithm" to prove it is "manipulated" would not already have written the output of this investigation?

Every freaking machine learning model has a bias. ask GPT or anthropic about palestine or even Trump, ask Deepseek about tiananmen. If you search for something you will find it. I could take GPT and prove its "manipulated" toward any race I want. Ill just start from this affirmation and then find things good enough to prove it to random people that will read the billionaire backed press that you praise

retinaros19• 1 year ago

look at what europe and its media did to romanian elections. we are in Huxley brave new world

drcongo• 1 year ago

You've not read Brave New World have you.

tzs2• 1 year ago

Romania really needs to fix their election system.

They are using a system where the winner is whoever gets more than 50%, but if nobody gets more than 50% they hold a run-off vote between the top two from the first vote.

The problem is that Romania has several viable political parties, which would be great if they used an election system designed to handle that like ranked choice, but in a top two run-off system has a high chance of electing someone that a large majority of the voters rank near the bottom of the candidates.

In the election you are referring to there were candidates from 10 different parties plus 4 independents running. I believe 6 of the parties were right-wing and 4 left-wing. The right-wing parties got 47% of the votes, with the top 3 of them getting 19.18%, 13.86%, and 8.79%.

The left-wing parties got 20% with the highest part getting 19.15%.

Independents got 33% with the highest individual getting 22.94%.

nashashmi3• 1 year ago

Strange case. After the TikTok Israel saga, we all know that there are some form of algorithm manipulation or lack of manipulation going on, and if that manipulation is not favorable, then there’s a bill called for the sale of such a company to some western aligned that country.

So now France wants to criminally prosecute as though they violated some existing law?

xyzal6• 1 year ago

Excuse me, what was 'TikTok Israel saga'?

gruez5• 1 year ago

Views on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict on tiktok is predominantly anti-Israel/pro-Palestine, which some accuse is a result of Tiktok is rigging the algorithm.

phendrenad2• 1 year ago

So they're basically accusing Twitter of violating an anti-hacking law, by manipulating their own algorithm. Fantastic.

orwin3• 1 year ago

Yes, basically. They won't find criminal intent, so that probe won't end in a lawsuit, but I bet it will end up changing Twitter status from hosting service to publisher.

retinaros19• 1 year ago

freedom of speech is above everything. France and Europe have been pushing narratives to hinder this under the premises of fighting evil (at the moment far right). first they wanted to track any cash usage to fight "terrorism" now they want to watch over social network and remove anonymity from the web. just like they cried over deepseek not talking about tiananmen they opressed people that criticized the left-leaning propaganda baked into the GPTs/Anthropic. in a few years we will have social points like china and those who disagree with left-leaning ideas and government interventionism will be reduced to silence or even jailed.

Cthulhu_4• 1 year ago

freedom of speech is above everything.

No it is not. I have the freedom to call you all kinds of insults, but I will get banned (if I'm not already, I wouldn't know lol). It's the paradox of intolerance.

in a few years we will have social points like china and those who disagree with left-leaning ideas and government interventionism will be reduced to silence or even jailed.

This is a slippery slope fallacy. Besides, the current powers-that-be are actively suppressing free speech already, banning books, teachings, erasing LGBTQ+ and Black history. You don't get freedom of speech either on platforms like Twitter, where for example the word "cisgender" gets actively suppressed. That's known, what isn't known is how certain topics get boosted or suppressed by their algorithms, which is why there should be transparency.

If you're afraid of the slippery slope from "the left", wake up and see what's actually happening right now. People in the US get disappeared while following the proper immigration processes. The media and speech is actively being suppressed (see the sudden cancellation of The Late Show).

retinaros19• 1 year ago

who defines what is an insult? the law? its interpretation based on ideology? who makes the law? in china talking about winnie the pooh can get you to jail. In western europe like (UK,Germany) that would be having memes or criticizing immigration policies

dont ever forget that the tools you build to punish and censor your opponents will be in its reach once they come to power. for instance Biden and twitter created a precedent that allowed X and Trump to happen.

gruez5• 1 year ago

This is a slippery slope fallacy. Besides, the current powers-that-be are actively suppressing free speech already, banning books, teachings, erasing LGBTQ+ and Black history. You don't get freedom of speech either on platforms like Twitter, where for example the word "cisgender" gets actively suppressed. That's known, what isn't known is how certain topics get boosted or suppressed by their algorithms, which is why there should be transparency.

What does US culture war issues have relevance to what's going on with France? Moreover what's the implication here? Are you trying to imply that because Americans are doing right-wing censorship, it's fine or even required that France engages in left-wing censorship?

aredox16• 1 year ago

those who disagree with left-leaning ideas

The current governemtn is close to the far-right, there are more and more attacks on muslim people without much of a eep from the government, there are openly neofascists manifestations in the streets of Paris (not even just far-right, open fascist)...

https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2025/05/13/extreme-...

retinaros19• 1 year ago

macron is surrounded by people from the left, he was minister under a leftist government which paved the way to his first term, most of his policies are left-leaning: strong state interventionism, strong government spending, protection of retirements pensions, suppression of tax on renters, The immigration record for the past year exceeded all forecasts. Visas rose by 16.8%, reaching 2,858,083 in 2024, he is even trying to regularize illegal immigrants in some industries. I really don't know what media you are watching but you should stick to the facts.

the majority of attacks and acts of vandalism are against christians in France (from the order of 9-10 times more) and acts of vandalism/violence on muslims actually decreasing year after year (around 130 right now). You can push some propaganda or vision of what is France but numbers matter and looking at numbers we are a failing left leaning government that increased debt and spending like crazy and is now trying to backtrack on many topics because what is looming is what happened to the greeks.

immibis2• 12 months ago

What is your plan to fight evil? "Don't fight evil" is also a valid answer, but not a good one. It would be a good one in a world with substantially less evil.

I can't really blame them for trying. Even under the untrue condition of perfectly benevolent governments, it's hard problem.

mvdtnz• 1 year ago

What does it mean to manipulate your own algorithm?

archagon2• 1 year ago

Some things are no longer "yours" once you put them out into the commons.

France launches criminal probe of X over alleged algorithm ‘manipulation’

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