The European Union Moves Toward a Possible Ban of Twitter if Musk Restores Free Speech Protections

Twitter LogoWe have been discussing efforts by figures like Hillary Clinton to enlist European countries to force Twitter to restore censorship rules. Unable to rely on corporate censorship or convince users to embrace censorship, Clinton and others are resorting to good old-fashioned state censorship, even asking other countries to censor the speech of American citizens. It is an easy case to make given the long criminalization of speech in countries like France, Germany, and England.

The European Union (EU) has now responded by warning Elon Musk that Twitter may be banned if it tries to restore free speech protections. At the head of this effort is one of the most anti-free speech figures in West, European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton.

As Twitter posts record numbers of new users who want more free speech, a virtual war has been declared by the political and media establishment in a “censor-or-die” campaign against Twitter.

Countries like Germany and Great Britain have also moved to counter any restoration of free speech. We have previously discussed the alarming rollback on free speech rights in the West, including France (here and here and here and here and here and here and here).

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern recently repeated this call for global censorship at the United Nations to the applause of diplomats and media alike.

The anti-free speech movement in the United States has shifted to Europe to do what the government cannot do in this country: force the censorship of dissenting viewpoints. It is, therefore, little surprise that Nina Jankowicz, the short-lived “disinformation czar” at Biden’s Department of Homeland Security, has now registered as a foreign agent with a European group pushing censorship.

The vehicle for this effort is also not surprising. For years, some of us have denounced the EU’s efforts to pass the Digital Services Act, a roadmap for state censorship on the Internet. It is the Western embrace of Chinese style speech controls on the Internet. The chief censor in the West has been Breton, who has shown open contempt for free speech values.

Breton has made no secret that he views free speech as a danger coming from the United States that needs to be walled off from the Internet. He previously declared that, with the DSA, the EU is now able to prevent the Internet from again becoming a place for largely unregulated free speech, which he referred to as the “Wild West” period of the Internet.

It is a telling reference because the EU views free speech itself as an existential danger. They reject the notion of free speech as its own protection where good speech can overcome bad speech. That is viewed as the “Wild West.”

Musk has indicated that he will try to comply with the EU demands but that “there is still huge work ahead.”

 I have previously suggested that, if Musk is forced to comply with EU censorship rules, he should post a warning to the citizens of these countries that they are being given state-controlled information under mandatory censorship laws.
However, in the United States, Musk should hold the line in his restoration of free speech and release the record on the company’s past censorship efforts.

Musk has forced people to take side in this existential free speech fight. The public has responded by signing up in record numbers. It is time for the public to see the truth about the years of election manipulation and viewpoint discrimination.

So, open the files. Allow the public to see not just communications on censorship (including subjects beyond Hunter Biden) but how Twitter may have used verification, throttling, algorithms, or other methods to control speech. The company does not have to release codes or potentially damaging information to reveal the back channel communications, deliberations, and targeting choices.

By embracing total transparency, Musk can force the EU and other companies to face the ugly realities of censorship. Let them take ownership of censorship as the public demands both transparency and accountability.

 

46 thoughts on “The European Union Moves Toward a Possible Ban of Twitter if Musk Restores Free Speech Protections”

  1. Suppression of speech is tyrannical. Weren’t we allies in a war to fight tyranny some time ago?

  2. I like the disclaimer for the EU, should be the same in the US for Google and Facebook

  3. This is an interesting time to be alive. So many people only want to hear the echo chamber of those who believe just as they do. I am not encouraged unfortunately about how all of this will turn out. So many of these folks like Hillary Clinton are held in utmost high esteem. I simply must shake my head in astonishment.

  4. “The European Union Moves Toward a Possible Ban of Twitter …”
    Let ‘Em Do It. Take It Away, and the Discourse will be Monumental.

    Politics have no relation to morals.

    You take away another person’s property, their honor, or their women, you force them to endure a setback in lifestyle, or. You force them to become better people when they do not wish to be. (The Prince, 76–77)

    One change always leaves the way open for the establishment of others.

    Niccolò Machiavelli

  5. COMMUNIST GLOBALIZATION

    This article is a statement of the obvious: Communists intend and are striving to control the world and impose the “dictatorship of the proletariat” globally.

    Well, duuuuuhh!!!

    The question is, “Where have all the “Americans” gone?”

    The American Founders and Framers codified all of the natural and God-given rights, freedoms, privileges and immunities that existed before government was conceived.

    That numerous despots and tyrants around the world have not yet received the memo and remain ignorant, cretinous, barbarian and malicious is fraudulent and false and does not bear.

    Natural and God-given means universal; the world is in the universe.

    Will the Sleeping Giant awaken or be involuntarily, or surreptitiously, euthanized; the frog had no idea it was being cooked until it was done.

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Res ipsa loquitur – The thing itself speaks

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