European misinformation researchers say DSA researcher access, the EU’s legal route for vetted academics to inspect platform data, is being slowed by rejections, narrow readings of the law, hard-to-meet security demands and, in X’s case, court fights. WIRED reported that researchers studying social media harms say the problem is less the Digital Services Act on paper than the way TikTok, Meta and X are implementing it.
One case came from Romania’s 2024 presidential election. Adriana Iamnitchi, chair of computational social sciences at Maastricht University, wanted TikTok API data to examine how pro-Calin Georgescu content was being monetized through hidden influencer marketing and live political streams. Before the vote, accounts that had long posted about fashion or manicures began promoting Georgescu, whose posts were viewed 120 million times, according to WIRED. Georgescu, previously polling in single digits, won the first round with 23 percent.
Iamnitchi wrote that TikTok rejected her team’s request, saying the researchers had not shown they were established researchers, had not explained commercial interests and had not met security requirements. Two months later, TikTok said it had flagged 116,000 accounts as potentially compromised and acted against more than 27,000 fake accounts in a coordinated network run by a third-party “fake engagement vendor” promoting Georgescu and the Alliance for the Union of Romanians. TikTok said it did not know who ran the network or where it came from.
Romania annulled the first round. In the May 2025 runoff, independent candidate and former Bucharest mayor Nicușor Dan defeated AUR’s George Simion after Georgescu was barred from running again. Declassified Romanian intelligence said Georgescu “benefited” from massive exposure and preferential treatment by TikTok and alleged Russia coordinated the online campaign. Georgescu said on YouTube that annulling the 2024 result was “practically a formalized coup d’état” by Romania’s Constitutional Court.
What is DSA researcher access?
Under Article 40 of the EU’s Digital Services Act, vetted researchers at credible institutions can request platform data when it is needed to study systemic risks, including illegal content, threats to fundamental rights and recommender systems. The idea is straightforward: platforms hold the evidence, so researchers cannot audit public harms if the data stays locked inside company systems.
Researchers told WIRED the application process often defeats that purpose. Iamnitchi said some platforms require data storage on infrastructure that cannot be compromised, such as a machine physically disconnected from the internet, which many universities do not have. L. K. Seiling, coordinator of the DSA40 Collaboratory, said approval does not guarantee useful or reproducible data.
DSA40 Collaboratory data cited by WIRED tracks 46 applications: 20 approved and 14 rejected. The rates vary sharply by company. TikTok approved 11 of 13 tracked requests, while X rejected 11 of 23. Seiling said the real rejection rate is probably higher because the tracker depends on voluntary reports.
Why is platform data still hard to get?
Companies have replaced or restricted older research channels. Meta shut down CrowdTangle and replaced it with the Meta Content Library and API. X put API access behind paid tiers that can cost academics hundreds of dollars a month, according to Duncan Allen, a research officer at Democracy Reporting International. TikTok limits the number of posts a researcher account can pull each day, which Allen said can make large-scale studies unworkable.
TikTok told WIRED it has given more than 1,500 research teams access to its tools and approved 130 EU applications in the second half of last year. The company said its daily quota of 1,000 API requests can produce up to 100,000 video and comment records, or up to 2 million follower records, and said it considers its tools DSA-compliant while welcoming more public guidance.
Meta told WIRED that CrowdTangle covered only part of its public data and that the Meta Content Library and API are its most comprehensive research tools so far. Meta said they cover Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp Channels and Threads, include privacy protections and are open to qualified nonprofit researchers, including journalists.
X has faced the sharpest enforcement. Democracy Reporting International and the Society for Civil Rights applied in April 2024 for X API access to study political discourse before Germany’s federal election. X rejected the request in November, and DRI sued in February 2025. A court ruled X should have granted access, according to Allen. DRI later went back to court over access for research before Hungary’s election and won on appeal after a Berlin court initially said the case belonged in Ireland, where X is based.
In December 2025, the European Commission fined X €120 million, partly for creating “unnecessary barriers” to researcher access that the commission said undermined research into EU risks. X appealed on February 20, 2026, calling the investigation “incomplete and superficial” and accusing the EU of due-process failures.
The commission has since accepted X’s plan to change researcher screening, provide data for free, shorten processing times and remove scraping restrictions. X has six months to make those changes. Allen called the plan “a step in the right direction” but told WIRED he wants more detail on how X will decide which researchers qualify.
The commission has also said Meta and TikTok may have created burdensome procedures and tools that leave researchers with partial or unreliable data, and it began meeting with platforms in May to develop a new vetting standard. A later EU measure expanded access to nonpublic data for research into illegal content, financial scams and recommender systems. Allen said that could force access to full follower lists, giving researchers a clearer way to map coordinated influence campaigns instead of staring at platform-approved keyholes.
This story draws on original reporting from Ars Technica.
