Democracy Reporting International (DRI), an NGO funded by the EU and the German government, has filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk’s X platform.
The lawsuit follows an initial request made by DRI in November for access to data on the Hungarian elections to ‘assess’ risks including foreign interference and disinformation. After X denied the request, the researchers took the case to the Berlin Regional Court, which ruled it was not competent to hear the matter.
DRI, with support from the Society for Civil Rights and law firm Hausfeld, has now appealed to a higher Berlin court, which has scheduled a hearing for February 17th.
The case has drawn criticism from MCC Brussels, which highlighted the NGO’s foreign funding and warned against outside interference in a sovereign nation’s election process. In a post on X, MCC Brussels stated: “An NGO funded 26% by the EU and 47% by the German government is suing X for ‘access’ to Hungary’s election data. That’s not transparency but a foreign power grab. Hands off Hungary’s elections!”
The lawsuit follows a similar legal attempt by the same researchers last year to obtain X data related to Germany’s elections in February 2025, which ended with the court dismissing the case.
