Elon Musk's X says it won't cooperate with 'politically motivated' French probe
Earlier this month, Paris prosecutors stepped up a preliminary probe into the social media platform for suspected algorithmic bias and fraudulent data extraction, authorising police to conduct searches, wire taps and surveillance against Mr Musk and X executives, or summon them to testify.
If they do not comply, a judge could issue an arrest warrant.
"Based on what we know so far, X believes that this investigation is distorting French law in order to serve a political agenda and, ultimately, restrict free speech," the social network posted on its Global Government Affairs account.
"For these reasons, X has not acceded to the French authorities' demands, as we have a legal right to do."
It was not immediately clear what sort of request prosecutors had sent to X, but failure to comply with a judicial request can range from a fine to obstruction of justice charges.
The Paris prosecutors' office did not respond to a request for comment.
X said the probe had been instigated by Eric Bothorel, a French lawmaker, who had accused X of "manipulating its algorithm for 'foreign interference' purposes", an allegation it said was "completely false".
Mr Bothorel, in a statement, defended the independence of the French judiciary.
"It's a concept that seems completely up-ended in the United States at the moment," he said, adding that France was committed to free speech but not without limits.
Musk, a former ally of US President Donald Trump, has accused European governments of attacking free speech and has voiced support for some of the region's far-right parties.
The French probe could deepen a rift between Washington and European capitals over what sort of discourse is permitted online, with senior US officials alleging the censoring of right-wing voices around the world.
The European Commission has been investigating X for breaching its digital transparency rules against illegal content, known as the Digital Services Act, since late 2023.
The social media giant X said Paris prosecutors had requested it hand over data on all user posts for analysis by researchers David Chavalarias and Maziyar Panahi, who it said had both exhibited "open hostility towards X".
Mr Chavalarias did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr Panahi denied any involvement in the investigation.
"My name was mentioned by mistake, based on my previous research projects with David Chavalarias, none of which have ever had any hostile intent toward X," he said in an email.
"The fact my name has been mentioned in such an erroneous manner demonstrates how little regard they have for the lives of others … I will not hesitate to pursue legal action for defamation should I receive any form of hate speech."
X did not respond to a request for comment on Mr Panahi's statement.
It also criticised the fact that it was being investigated under organised crime charges, which could allow police to wire tap its employees' personal devices.
Reuters
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
News.com.au
an hour ago
- News.com.au
Grok, is that Gaza? AI image checks mislocate news photographs
This image by AFP photojournalist Omar al-Qattaa shows a skeletal, underfed girl in Gaza, where Israel's blockade has fuelled fears of mass famine in the Palestinian territory. But when social media users asked Grok where it came from, X boss Elon Musk's artificial intelligence chatbot was certain that the photograph was taken in Yemen nearly seven years ago. The AI bot's untrue response was widely shared online and a left-wing pro-Palestinian French lawmaker, Aymeric Caron, was accused of peddling disinformation on the Israel-Hamas war for posting the photo. At a time when internet users are turning to AI to verify images more and more, the furore shows the risks of trusting tools like Grok, when the technology is far from error-free. Grok said the photo showed Amal Hussain, a seven-year-old Yemeni child, in October 2018. In fact the photo shows nine-year-old Mariam Dawwas in the arms of her mother Modallala in Gaza City on August 2, 2025. Before the war, sparked by Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Mariam weighed 25 kilograms, her mother told AFP. Today, she weighs only nine. The only nutrition she gets to help her condition is milk, Modallala told AFP--and even that's "not always available". Challenged on its incorrect response, Grok said: "I do not spread fake news; I base my answers on verified sources." The chatbot eventually issued a response that recognised the error -- but in reply to further queries the next day, Grok repeated its claim that the photo was from Yemen. The chatbot has previously issued content that praised Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and that suggested people with Jewish surnames were more likely to spread online hate. - Radical right bias - Grok's mistakes illustrate the limits of AI tools, whose functions are as impenetrable as "black boxes", said Louis de Diesbach, a researcher in technological ethics. "We don't know exactly why they give this or that reply, nor how they prioritise their sources," said Diesbach, author of a book on AI tools, "Hello ChatGPT". Each AI has biases linked to the information it was trained on and the instructions of its creators, he said. In the researcher's view Grok, made by Musk's xAI start-up, shows "highly pronounced biases which are highly aligned with the ideology" of the South African billionaire, a former confidante of US President Donald Trump and a standard-bearer for the radical right. Asking a chatbot to pinpoint a photo's origin takes it out of its proper role, said Diesbach. "Typically, when you look for the origin of an image, it might say: 'This photo could have been taken in Yemen, could have been taken in Gaza, could have been taken in pretty much any country where there is famine'." AI does not necessarily seek accuracy -- "that's not the goal," the expert said. Another AFP photograph of a starving Gazan child by al-Qattaa, taken in July 2025, had already been wrongly located and dated by Grok to Yemen, 2016. That error led to internet users accusing the French newspaper Liberation, which had published the photo, of manipulation. - 'Friendly pathological liar' - An AI's bias is linked to the data it is fed and what happens during fine-tuning -- the so-called alignment phase -- which then determines what the model would rate as a good or bad answer. "Just because you explain to it that the answer's wrong doesn't mean it will then give a different one," Diesbach said. "Its training data has not changed and neither has its alignment." Grok is not alone in wrongly identifying images. When AFP asked Mistral AI's Le Chat -- which is in part trained on AFP's articles under an agreement between the French start-up and the news agency -- the bot also misidentified the photo of Mariam Dawwas as being from Yemen. For Diesbach, chatbots must never be used as tools to verify facts. "They are not made to tell the truth," but to "generate content, whether true or false", he said.
ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
Irish author John Boyne on writing The Elements, a four-part series examining child abuse
When John Boyne — the author of bestselling novels The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and The Heart's Invisible Furies — was growing up in Ireland in the 1980s and 90s, the country was beginning to reckon with its history of abuse. It became clear that many people knew sexual crimes were happening, but looked the other way. "That's the thing that's always fascinated me," Boyne tells ABC Radio National's The Book Show. "I'm not so much interested in the monsters. Complicity is a theme that runs through much of Boyne's work, from 2015's A History of Loneliness, about systemic sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, to his latest work, a four-part series of linked novellas known as The Elements. Each book explores the issue of child abuse from a different perspective: that of an enabler (Water), a complicit observer (Earth), a perpetrator (Fire) and a victim (Air). The issue of child abuse has particular resonance for Boyne, who was assaulted by a teacher when he was a high school student in Dublin. Boyne was one of 12 victims who reported the abuse to the police as adults. The man was arrested and was due in court in March 2024. However, he died of natural causes a few months before the trial was scheduled to begin. It was a frustrating outcome for the group. "The 12 of us didn't get our day in court," Boyne says. But the experience spurred him to use his platform as an author to send a message to fellow victims of abuse. "I really want to … say that if something like this has happened to you, it doesn't matter how long ago it was, you can still go to the police. They would hear your story," he says. The four Elements books share common characters and settings, the echoes of each story reverberating through the others. The prolific Boyne published one novella every six months, beginning in 2023. The completed series is due to be published in one volume as The Elements in September. The first book, Water, is narrated by a Dublin woman, Willow Hale, who escapes to a remote island on the Irish West Coast to start a new life. Willow's 25-year marriage ends when her husband is convicted of child abuse, and she must reckon with the past and her role in her husband's crimes. "As I started it, I didn't know what the answers to those questions were going to be for her because I don't like plotting out a novel. I prefer to start with an idea or a theme or a character and see where it will take me," Boyne says. "It was through her interactions with the islanders that she gets those answers for herself and finally comes to some sort of catharsis, with some understanding of her own part in her family's past." The next novella, Earth, picks up the story of a peripheral character from Water: Evan Keogh, a 16-year-old boy who flees the island to escape his violent father. In Earth, Evan, now in his early 20s, is a professional footballer accused of being an accessory to rape. As the trial against him and his teammate, Robbie, unfolds, we learn tragic details about Evan's past. Abuse, it becomes clear, takes many forms. Despite their dark subject matter, the books contain moments of levity to break the tension. Humour is a valuable tool when writing about such dark subjects, Boyne says. "You need something that will allow the reader to take a breath every so often. "Anytime I go into universities to talk to creative writing students … I [always] say no matter what you're writing, no matter how dark or personal … bring in a few jokes every so often. It's good for the reader, and it lightens the pace." Narrated by a perpetrator, Fire, the third book of the series, is one of Boyne's darkest. Perhaps that's why, of his 20-plus books for children and adults, he found it the hardest to write. "It was the most difficult voice," he says. "[Dr Freya Petrus] is a respected surgeon. She's very good at her job, very empathetic with her patients. But she is abusing young boys outside of her professional life. "The nine months or so I … [had] that voice in my head [every] day, it did start to weigh down on me, I must admit, because it's not easy to stay in the mind of someone who is committing these acts." Boyne acknowledges that most sexual crimes are committed by men; however, in recent years, he says he has noticed an increasing number of cases involving female perpetrators reported in the media. He felt it was an under-examined issue. "I hadn't read about it in a novel; we always read about the men committing the crimes," he says "I thought it would be very interesting to focus on a woman's point of view and see what might lead her to that moment." Flashbacks to a traumatic event in her past give context to Dr Petrus's present-day behaviour. "We discover what it is that has led her to behave in the way she behaves," Boyne says. "Not everybody who has been abused goes on to be an abuser, but most people who abuse have probably been abused, and one of the things I try to dig down to in the books is what happened to the people in the past who commit these crimes? It's a sentiment articulated by a character in Fire, speaking about her abusive father: "It's the committing of the act that matters," she says. "He could have chosen to break the cycle." The final book, Air, follows Aaron Umber — who appears in Fire as a 23-year-old medical student — as he embarks on an overseas trip with his 14-year-old son, Emmett. Aaron, now 40, is overwhelmed by fear for Emmett, who is the same age he was when he was abused, and his anxiety creates tension between father and son. "He is worried about the world his son is in," Boyne says. "[But] the 14-year-old boy is at the point in his life where he wants his freedom. He wants a bit of independence; he wants his father to back off." In Fire, danger came from the physical world. In Air, it's the digital world that poses the greater risk. "I don't have children, but I have many friends who have teenage kids, and their biggest fear is what's going on in that little phone in their pockets," Boyne says. Cyberbullying and image-based abuse are serious threats that can cause distress and trauma and, in some cases, lead to suicide. "[Children often] don't have the emotional resources yet to deal with that," Boyne says. "Aaron … knows that he's never going to get access to [Emmett's] private digital life. But what he does need to access is his son's emotional life. Now that The Elements is complete, the author has had the chance to reflect on the series and what he describes as a cathartic writing process. "I have felt empowered," he says. It has also enabled him to move forward from his own experience of abuse. "I feel like I've now written myself out of this subject. I don't see myself returning to it in fiction," he says. "I've been dealing with this long enough in my life, and it's time to forget it and move on. "Every second, every minute that you give your abuser further thought is still giving them some sort of power, and I choose not to let that happen anymore. "I'm proud of what I've done in these four books, and I think it's been good for me as a person." Water, Earth, Fire and Air are published by Doubleday (Penguin).
The Australian
9 hours ago
- The Australian
Pro-Trump nationalist becomes Poland's new president
Poland's new nationalist president Karol Nawrocki called for a "sovereign Poland" and promised to "fight those who are pushing the nation towards decline" as he was sworn in on Wednesday. Nawrocki, 42, a supporter of US President Donald Trump, won a June 1 election in a major blow for the pro-EU government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a former European Council president. "I will be the voice of those who want a sovereign Poland that is in the EU, but a Poland that is not the EU," he told lawmakers after taking his oath of office. "We must fight those who are pushing the nation towards decline and degradation," he said, citing Ignacy Paderewski, a Polish prime minister from the early 20th century. Nawrocki, a historian and political novice, has branded Tusk's government the "worst" in the history of post-communist Poland. - 'He doesn't grovel' - Outside the parliament, thousands of people came to show their support for Nawrocki. "He doesn't grovel before Brussels," Jan Smolinski, 75, a retired miner, told AFP, adding: "He's a true Pole, flesh and blood". Marietta Borcz, a 57-year-old dental assistant, said it was "important" to her that Nawrocki "is Catholic and will uphold Christian values". During the election campaign, Nawrocki ruled out easing Poland's near total abortion ban or allowing same-sex civil partnerships. A small group of around 20 protesters held up black roses, saying Nawrocki's inauguration was "a black day for Poland". Stanislawa Sklodowska, 72, a retired economist said his election "reflects poorly on us Poles". Nawrocki, who travelled to Washington to seek Trump's backing during the campaign, won a narrow victory against liberal candidate Rafal Trzaskowski. The result showed the high degree of political polarisation in the EU and NATO member state, a key supporter of neighbouring Ukraine. Presidents in Poland can initiate as well as veto legislation, and have some influence over the country's foreign and defence policies. - 'Annoy us' - Relations between government and president are likely to be tense ahead of parliamentary elections planned for 2027. "I have no doubt that Mr Nawrocki will do everything to annoy us," said Tusk, who warned that he would not let Nawrocki "demolish" his government. But in a message on social media on Wednesday, Tusk said he had already worked with three presidents in the past. "What will it be like with the fourth? We'll manage," he wrote. Nawrocki has promised to be "an active president" from the start and has said he wants to "stimulate" the government with various bills. The government holds a parliamentary majority and analysts say the two sides may be forced to make some compromises. "Both parties should realise that engaging in intense confrontation is obviously not the way forward," said Piotr Trudnowski, a member of Klub Jagiellonski, a Christian-Democrat think tank. - 'Poland First, Poles First' - Ewa Marciniak, a political scientist at the University of Warsaw, said that Nawrocki would have to work with the government on foreign policy -- in which he has "no experience". During the election campaign, he highlighted the importance of ties with the United States and his close ties with Trump. "It is precisely from this that he will build his foreign policy, at least initially," Marciniak said. One major difference could be relations with Ukraine. Trudnowski said Nawrocki would "not be as enthusiastic" as his predecessor Andrzej Duda on Ukraine. During his campaign, Nawrocki opposed the idea of NATO membership for Ukraine and criticised Kyiv for not having "shown gratitude for what the Poles have done". Under his slogan "Poland First, Poles First", he was critical of some of the benefits received by the more than one million Ukrainians who have fled to the country. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has congratulated Nawrocki and emphasised the importance of close ties with Poland -- a vital transit country for military and humanitarian supplies to his country as it fights off Russia's invasion. After speaking to Nawrocki by phone last week, Zelensky said the two had agreed to visit each other and seek forms of cooperation "that will bring real results for both our countries and our people". Zelensky said he was "thankful for the readiness to work together and for the assurance of continued support for Ukraine". bo-str/dt/giv
