It must be exhausting being Elon Musk. Alongside sending rockets into space, working on brain implants and running one of the world’s biggest social-media firms, he seems to have a plethora of beefs to attend to.
The arrogance of EU officialdom knows no bounds.
So soon after Musk’s war of words with Keir Starmer, over the UK PM’s handling of the recent unrest, an old Brussels-based foe of his, European Commissioner Thierry Breton, has popped back up to chastise him for not ushering in censorship on X fast enough.
Last night, Breton posted an open letter, channelling a jobsworth tax inspector, reminding Musk of his obligations, under the EU’s 2022 Digital Services Act (DSA), to take down various forms of ‘harmful content’. After some uproar today, the European Commission has said that Breton’s letter did not have the approval of its president Ursula Von der Leyen. ‘Thierry has his own mind and way of working and thinking,’ said an official, coldly.
Still, Breton is no minor figure in the EU hierarchy, and the aim of his letter was clear. He all but blamed Britain’s race riots on X, noting the recent ‘public unrest brought about by the amplification of content that promotes hatred, disorder, incitement to violence, or certain instances of disinformation.’
Even more outrageously, he was apparently spurred into action by Musk’s live audio interview on X last night with Donald Trump, with Breton cryptically referring to Musk’s then upcoming talk with ‘a US presidential candidate’.
Musk, for his part, replied by posting a lewd meme, referencing the film Tropic Thunder. This has been going on for many months now, with pompous, censorious statements from Breton met by increasingly no-nonsense, Very Online responses from Musk.
Since taking over Twitter, Musk has made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t intend to play ball with the EU’s vast new censorship regime. In turn, Brussels has launched formal proceedings against X, which could ultimately lead to it being banished from the continent.
Breton’s letter reminds us that the EU also has ambitions beyond its borders, slyly chastising Musk for daring to interview a man who could be US president, noting the chat will ‘also be accessible to users in the EU’. The arrogance of EU officialdom knows no bounds.
Breton underlined that content emanating from elsewhere in the world is also in scope of the DSA, given it can obviously be easily viewed in EU member states. ‘As the relevant content is accessible to EU users and being amplified also in our jurisdiction, we cannot exclude potential spillovers in the EU’, he writes.
It’s bad enough that unelected bureaucrats like Breton are deciding what Europeans can say and read on the internet. But EU bigwigs have also made plain that they want the DSA to become a global ‘gold standard’ in online censorship. Alternatively, Europe will end up with a more balkanised internet, with different platforms available and / or different rules applying.
No firm can expect to evade the law – even EU law, which lacks any shred of democratic legitimacy. But this is more than a compliance issue. This is a censorious crusade, waged by a Brussels elite keen to throw its weight around and crush dissent.
There’s a reason the EU elites are ramping up the censorship at the very same time as populist voters and parties are challenging their right to rule. In the end, Breton’s beef isn’t with Musk. It’s with the millions of Europeans he has dared to give a voice to.
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