Big Tech Keeps Blocking EU Researchers' Data Access
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- Maastricht University researcher Adriana Iamnitchi had her TikTok API access request denied while studying the pro-Georgescu campaign in Romania; TikTok later flagged 116,000 potentially compromised accounts and removed 27,000+ fake accounts tied to Georgescu's Alliance for the Union of Romanians party.
- DSA40 Collaboratory tracking data shows 20 of 46 researcher applications were approved and 14 rejected, with TikTok approving 11 of 13 while X rejected 11 of 23 — and the true rejection rate is likely higher because the tracker relies on voluntary reporting.
- Meta shut down public tool CrowdTangle and replaced it with the Meta Content Library and API, while X paywalled its API at "hundreds of dollars a month," according to researcher Duncan Allen of Democracy Reporting International.
- Democracy Reporting International sued X after rejection ahead of Germany's 2024 federal election and won; a separate case over Hungary's election nearly collapsed when a Berlin court ruled researchers should have sued in Ireland, but DRI won on appeal.
- The European Commission fined X €120 million ($137 million) in December 2025 for creating "unnecessary barriers" to researcher access; X appealed February 20, 2026, but the commission last week accepted X's action plan, giving the company six months to fix its vetting process and provide data free of charge.
- The commission expanded researchers' access to nonpublic platform data in late 2025 to include recommender systems — a change that could force X to release full account follower lists, letting disinformation researchers map coordinated networks that are currently invisible.
Why it matters: The EU's €120 million X fine shows real enforcement teeth, but two years of DSA implementation prove platforms can still obstruct researchers through narrow vetting and burdensome requirements. With the new nonpublic-data provisions untested and elections ongoing across Europe, coordinated disinformation networks remain a black box.
