A German court rules: X must provide researchers access to data
67 comments
·February 7, 2025qwertox
shawnz
One possible counterargument is that bad actors could use the data to improve their spamming or astroturfing methods.
juancn
From TFA:
X had not responded to a court request for information, the court added, ordering the company to bear the 6,000 euro ($6,200) cost of proceedings.
csomar
That's the cost of the lawyers. If they did cost only 6.000 euros, that's actually a victory for the little man.
postepowanieadm
Not really. 6k euros are only for taking court's time and flat-rate lawyers salary. (Imagine, in Europe average person may sue tech giants!) If x will not comply it will be forced, maybe even by some sort of receivership. The big thing is that x may be sued in German court.
ffsm8
I think you're interpreting that that's the only outcome?
In Germany it's much harder to get money via lawsuit (vs the US), so that's kinda normal. If Twitter doesn't comply, the Staatsanwaltschaft will open a new lawsuit which will have a much bigger fine.
but yeah - 6k lawyers fee sounds like a joke, I guess it was a slam dunk case with very little time on the clock for the lawyers.
juancn
They just need to delay until after the elections and then pay the fine.
jonas21
I thought we decided giving researchers access to social network data was a bad thing after the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
krick
TBH, while I would like Twitter to be obligated to provide access to any data to anyone, I don't really understand on what grounds the decision was made. I mean, I wouldn't ask, if it was an USA court, where it's considered normal that any stupid judge can make any stupid decision, and it is called a precedent and must be respected. But in Germany there are laws, right? At least, theoretically. I mean, I personally don't believe in that, but any court decision is supposed be almost a natural consequence of the existing laws. So what is the law that makes a company obligated to do some work for free and send your data to some "researchers"? Honestly, I just don't like how it sounds, I kinda prefer libertarian anarchy, unrestrained mayhem and total impunity of various Musks to that kind of stuff.
_trampeltier
"Other platforms have granted us access to systematically track public debates on their platforms, but X has refused to do so," said DRI's Michael Meyer-Resende in a statement on Wednesday, announcing the lawsuit.
What others share just info for free?
ben_w
> What others share just info for free?
Given it's a legal obligation? The ones whose boss isn't personally interfering with a foreign election.
ivewonyoung
Where can we download that data you're referring to?
protimewaster
I assume it varies by platform. Meta has a service that makes data available to vetted academic researchers, for example, so keep in mind that "available to researchers" does not necessarily mean that one can just post a link to it on Hacker News.
If there's a specific platform you're thinking of, there's probably someone in here that can direct you to the right place. What platform are you thinking of?
pavlov
Meta provides data to qualified researchers, which seems to satisfy the European law.
throwaway_20357
There is also the Meta Content Library and API (https://transparency.meta.com/en-gb/researchtools/meta-conte...) although that seems to contain only a subset of the data.
warkdarrior
Facebook has its Researcher Platform for vetted academics: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/researcher-platform/
cess11
Perhaps there are fees involved, perhaps not, but yes, they do election monitoring on other services:
https://democracy-reporting.org/en/office/global/collection?...
Here's the press release TFA is based on:
https://democracy-reporting.org/en/office/EU/news/court-orde...
hereme888
Why would a private US company be ordered to provide anything to researchers just because others do it? What's the logic behind this?
andruby
Doing business in a country means complying to its laws.
The US is/was asking a lot more from the private company TikTok iirc.
We can dislike these laws, but they’re not optional.
elashri
It is called following local laws if you want to operate in the market under the jurisdiction of these local laws. You are free to no comply and then they are free to prevent you from operating. It is the same like individuals visiting/moving to this place. Being private/public company does not grant you immunity.
sunshine-o
I still remember the time before the Internet, I can assure you the world was full of disinformation and misinformation, I believe way more than today.
Everywhere, in schools, in cafes, the bus stop people would tell you crazy things and people would argue about whether it is true or not. If you really wanted to settle it you would need to find an encyclopedia, but most of the time you would need to go to a public library and find a book or go through microfilms for hours, make a copy and show it to everybody to fight disinformation.
Depending on the country, the government had a tight or tighter control on what was in that library.
Some country would also tightly control what was said in a bar or cafe like in East Germany.
So thinking we are in a life threatening misinformation epidemic is just false if you compare to just a few decades ago.
sgt
Yeah, and remember when some adults (otherwise normal people) argued that they had seen UFO's?
Fnoord
Kind of harmless conspiracy compared to many of the current ones.
mmooss
It would be interesting to measure it, but look at things like vaccination rates, which have gone down, and the willingness to support political candidates and news sources who embrace disinformation, which has gone way up - whatever you think of Trump and the modern GOP, they are much different than their predecessors. Maybe now people are more convinced of disnformation or otherwise willing to act on it.
lysace
Thinking about the probable next steps made me remember that time Germany temporarily prohibited wikipedia.de from pointing to the actual Wikipedia when an article there said that the German politician Lutz Heilmann had been a full-time Stasi (the infamous and insanely brutal secret police) employee in the former DDR.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia#German...
chihuahua
Interesting that a single cranky ex-Stasi employee can block Wikipedia for all of Germany because he's mad that Wikipedia states the proven fact that he is a former Stasi employee.
Do German courts not review the facts before granting injunctions?
Retric
As a rule short term injunctions (in this case 2 days) have minimal fact checking.
That’s kind of the inherent tradeoff for courts being able to make really rapid decisions. It’s useful if say someone’s house was going to be destroyed tomorrow you can’t exactly do a lot of fact checking or the damage will have been done, but it means a lot of seemingly silly things happen.
The goal is prevent harm while doing basic fact checking in preparation for some longer review, and again 2 days later the court didn’t extend the injunction after review.
extraduder_ire
In many legal jurisdictions, something being true does not necessarily make it non-defamatory. Don't know if that's the case in Germany.
I don't agree, but it's a legal reality.
hkwerf
IANAL. In Germany, something being true makes it non-defamatory [1].
> Wer in Beziehung auf einen anderen eine Tatsache behauptet oder verbreitet, welche denselben verächtlich zu machen oder in der öffentlichen Meinung herabzuwürdigen geeignet ist, wird, wenn nicht diese Tatsache erweislich wahr ist, mit Freiheitsstrafe bis zu einem Jahr oder mit Geldstrafe und, wenn die Tat öffentlich, in einer Versammlung oder durch Verbreiten eines Inhalts (§ 11 Absatz 3) begangen ist, mit Freiheitsstrafe bis zu zwei Jahren oder mit Geldstrafe bestraft.
I'll just translate the important condition for being punished for defamation ("Üble Nachrede"):
> [...] if not this fact is demonstrably true [...]
I've intentionally kept the somewhat weird word order while translating. It's just as weird to read for a German. It's an old law.
throwaway_20357
That was in 2008. The block lasted 2 days (https://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyle/lawmaker-apologize...).
0cf8612b2e1e
That’s still an eternity for such a valuable resource.
duskwuff
This didn't impede access to Wikipedia (de.wikipedia.org), just the stub web site (which may have been a redirect at that time?) at wikipedia.de.
black_puppydog
I mean, it's great to get some stuff on the record (and as a German myself I see our courts as one of the stronger checks on power in general, they've been imperfect but overall pretty reliable).
But I'm not sure what the researchers are trying to find that's not already in plain sight. By now it's pretty clear that the network is actively driving discourse in one specific direction. And with Musk's involvement in the US admin, it's even more officially a non-friendly foreign actor than tiktok is.
jampekka
> By now it's pretty clear that the network is actively driving discourse in one specific direction.
Research is exactly about not just taking a look and declaring something "pretty clear". Also what "a direction" is not clear, or the dynamics of what affects the direction etc.
tyre
It’s pretty clear.
There were a few shifts that happened:
1. Musk bought twitter
2. Musk, despite being the wealthiest person on earth and running companies that are genuinely fascinating, has nonetheless—against overwhelming odds—been considered a loser.
3. Because of (2) and his fragile ego (part of the reason he was widely considered a loser in the pre-Musk dominant circles) he went hard to the right. Petty grievances, anti-free speech, “burn it down”, etc.
4. Twitter made changes under Musk that compensated large accounts based on the number of views or engagements.
Effectively a rev share for ad spend
5. Because Musk can massively amplify content and has a fragile ego, aligning yourself with Musk’s pet issues directly affects income for influencers. Accounts in the other direction can be demonetized and deprioritized on feeds.
This has led to large accounts, in the run up to the election, being very vocally trump even when they’ve had publicly leftist leanings in the past. It wasn’t a shift in policy positions. It was a shift to ragebait and memes that were more likely to get Elon’s attention and retweets.
So it is both pretty clear and a result of active decisions in one specific direction. We don’t need a multi-year quintuple blind study by esteemed Ivy League research fellows to do the basic observation and deduction of the situation.
mmooss
> 2. Musk, despite being the wealthiest person on earth and running companies that are genuinely fascinating, has nonetheless—against overwhelming odds—been considered a loser.
I've never heard or seen that. Musk is a public figure and subject to much criticism, but so are all public figures and Musk actively provokes it (that is, Musk trolls for it).
> 3. Because of (2) and his fragile ego (part of the reason he was widely considered a loser in the pre-Musk dominant circles) he went hard to the right. Petty grievances, anti-free speech, “burn it down”, etc.
Lots of wealthy SV people have gone hard right; they don't all have relatively fragile egos. Musk is following the herd.
It's pardoxical that people think Musk, Zuckerberg, etc. are geniuses when they both follow the herd and have chosen a herd that is running off a cliff. They did not invent this ideology (who did?).
jampekka
I'm partial to believing Musk's control and personal beliefs have been a factor in changes in Xitter discourse. But what would be effective ways for convincing others? Also I like to think I verify my beliefs with systematic analysis.
Furthermore, these points don't give any analysis of how this change has evolved, exactly how the messaging has changed, what's been the timeline etc.
Not checking your assumptions with data, and furher rejecting attempts to do this, is what I think is a large part driving what's happening. But for sure I'd like a reality check for my thinking.
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF
> We don’t need a multi-year quintuple blind study by esteemed Ivy League research fellows to do the basic observation and deduction of the situation.
Of course not, they're going to provide more precise data and facts. Perhaps many don't need the data to arrive at conclusions the data will point to but that does not obviate the utility of the research. Really, if you think their data will point to these conclusions, one would think you'd be that much more interested to see that the research is being conducted.
1234letshaveatw
Non-friendly meaning not single sided in favor of your preferred political orientation. As a US citizen I find the discourse on X to be nowhere near as directed compared to platforms such as reddit or bsky- I am sure you are deeply concerned about that issue as well, even though you left it unsaid
lazyeye
Yes "when you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression."
lazyeye
"By now it's pretty clear that the network is actively driving discourse in one specific direction..."
I don't think this is clear at all.
blackeyeblitzar
> The GFF and Democracy Reporting International had argued that X had a duty under European law to provide easily researchable, collated access to information such as post reach, shares and likes - information theoretically available by laboriously clicking through thousands of posts but in practice impossible to access.
What law requires this? That data seems interesting, but it also seems odd to require a private platform to provide it. Is this directly legislated in the EU, or is this some kind of technicality?
mmooss
Into the 1920s and early 1930s, Germany seems to have been a/the center of research, culture, etc. The rise of the Nazis shut down research that conflicted with their political goals and researchers left for free countries, especially the US. The US, perhaps the only wealthy place on earth after WWII - it devestated Europe - has been the center of research and culture since then.
Now in the US, right-wing powers have campaigned to shut down disinformation research, often via lawfare and apparently via influence on major universities. Also, the Trump administration has made clear it is against much scientific research, especially when results conflict with political goals, and has already interfered in significant ways with research (and also culture). I think the Trump administration would agree with that description.
There's no war yet that will devestate the US economically, but the Trump administration is willing to risk that. Even without a war, it's not hard to imagine disinformation researchers moving to Europe now, and also scientists and also artists generally. Again, I think the Trump administration would endorse that.
ANewFormation
1920s-1930s Germany was "a/the center of research, culture, etc."?
This is especially rich in the context of a post pedestaling against disinformation.
esbranson
Germany is a state, the US is a federation of states. Germany purged its universities, so has California (a state) etc. Nothing to do with Trump. Will there be consequences for California etc.? Probably. But we have other states with university systems who are not.
Corporate inversions to the US will likely increase faster than they already are, along with their human capital, blunting whatever leftists it may lose.
The US was a world power long before it smashed Spain the the 1890s, certainly before it won WW2. And wars don't devastate the US economy, they invigorate it. (Except for the one the US fought against the Democratic Party.)
It's funny to compare this to Nazis when the US is doing the same thing it did before, during, and after the Nazis. America's Nazi Party, what the German Nazis modeled theirs on, even still exists. It almost won the last election. No one even remembers how many people they raped, murdered, and tortured en masse. Everyone will forget all this too.
fred_is_fred
How is Germany going to enforce this? President Musk doesn't seem to be subject to any laws to me.
belorn
Many of the largest US companies has local branches in Europe, and twitter is no exception here. In this case they have a branch office in Berlin. Im not a lawyer so Im not sure about the exact details, but if there is local presence then they are subject to the laws of that country like any other company, and enforcement should be similar.
cocodill
how about "in no way"?
swarnie
He's not subject to your laws, the EU isn't a state of your union.
fred_is_fred
He's not subject to any law that I can see. Hence my question, what will EU courts do here? Elon does not care what any courts or governments have told him so far. In the end I think he will threaten something with his German factories and everyone will back down. He's not going to get arrested or anything.
1234letshaveatw
sigh- I wish we could go back to the heady days of the Biden presidency when everyone knew who had their hands on the wheel
djkivi
It was the person inside the Easter Bunny costume, right?
> At the heart of this case was the enforcement of a new legal provision under the DSA: the right to access research data (Article 40(12) DSA). This provision requires large online platforms to provide researchers with immediate access to publicly available data on their platforms in order to assess systemic risks. The lawsuit has also helped clarify open legal questions regarding the judicial enforceability of this right in Germany. [0]
Why would anyone living in a democracy be against this?
Also, maybe this linked article would be a better one that the one from Reuters.
[0] https://democracy-reporting.org/en/office/EU/news/court-orde...