The plaintiffs, Democracy Reporting International (DRI) and the Society for Civil Rights (GFF), alleged that X hindered them from tracking potential election interference by not granting them access to key engagement data such as likes, shares and visibility metrics.
“X challenges whether the German court is competent to hear the case, given that X’s HQ is in Ireland. The company has not provided data access and our window to conduct the study before the elections is closing,” DRI’s Executive Director Michael Meyer-Resende said in a reaction.
The court said a hearing is likely to follow X’s objection but that no date has been set.
X did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.
The DSA requires that platforms share data with researchers for certain studies. The Commission already accused X in July last year of breaching the DSA for not meeting requirements around data access. It also quizzed Meta last year over its decision to shut down research tool CrowdTangle.
Multiple reports by civil society organizations have found evidence of Russia-backed foreign interference in Germany’s election scheduled to take place on Sunday Feb. 23.
