Elon Musk’s X platform investigated in France for alleged data tampering and fraud

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PARIS (AP) — French prosecutors have launched a police investigation into alleged data tampering and fraud involving X, Elon Musk’s social media platform.

The Paris prosecutor’s office, in a statement Friday, announced the opening of the investigation, and said that a branch of the French gendarmerie is conducting the inquiry.

The investigation is looking into two alleged offences “in particular” — organized tampering with the functioning of an automated data processing system, and organized fraudulent extraction of data from an automated data processing system, the statement said.

It didn’t give details of the alleged wrongdoing. It said that the investigation is targeting both the platform and people, without naming them or saying what role they might have within X.

The prosecutor’s office said that it was acting on information that two people provided in January to its cybercrimes unit. One of them is a member of parliament, and the other is a senior official in a French government institution. It didn’t identify them or the institution.

It said the two people alleged the suspected use of X’s algorithm for the “purposes of foreign interference.” It didn’t detail the alleged interference or how the algorithm was allegedly used.

The prosecutor’s office said that it decided this week to open the police investigation, after conducting its own “verifications” and having received additional information from French researchers and “various public institutions.”

The Associated Press has emailed X’s press office, seeking comment.