Twitter is obviously at the centre of what is commonly known as ‘Big Tech censorship’. It has been busily using the censorship tools at its disposal – from removing or quarantining tweets to surreptitiously ‘deboosting’ them (shadow-banning) to outright account suspension – for at least two years now. And those who have managed to remain on the platform will have noticed a sharp upturn in its censorship activities starting last summer.
For most of this time, the main focus of Twitter censorship has, of course, been supposed ‘COVID-19 disinformation’. By now, almost all the most influential advocates of early treatment or critics of COVID-19 vaccines on Twitter have had their accounts suspended, and most have not made it back.
The list of the permanently suspended includes such prominent voices as Robert Malone, Steve Kirsch, Daniel Horowitz, Nick Hudson, Anthony Hinton, Jessica Rose, Naomi Wolf and, most recently, Peter McCullough.
And myriad smaller accounts have met the same fate for committing such thought crimes as suggesting that the myocarditis risk of both mRNA vaccines (Moderna and BioNTech/Pfizer) outstrips any benefit or pointing to mRNA instability and its unknown consequences for safety and efficacy.
But why in the world would Twitter censor such content? The expression ‘Big Tech censorship’ implies that Twitter et al. are censoring of their own accord, which invariably elicits the retort that, well, they are private companies, so they can do what they want. But why would they want to?
The notion that it is because the denizens of Silicon Valley are ‘Leftists’ or ‘liberals’ is clearly not very helpful. They may well be. But whether mRNA vaccines are safe and effective, as advertised, is a factual matter, not an ideological one. And, in any case, the purpose of private for-profit corporations is, needless to say, to make a profit. The motto of the shareholder is not “Workers of the World Unite!” but “Pecunia non olet.” money doesn’t stink. Shareholders expect management to create value, not destroy it.
But what Twitter is doing by censoring is precisely subverting its own business model, thus undermining profitability and putting downward pressure on share price. Free speech is obviously the lifeblood of every social media. Censored speech – like the tweets of a Robert Malone or a Peter McCullough or, for that matter, a Donald Trump – translates into lost traffic for the platform. And traffic is, of course, the key to monetising unrestricted online content.
We could call this the ‘Twitter conundrum’. On the one hand, there is no way that Twitter could possibly ‘want’ to censor Covid dissident voices, or indeed any voices, and thus restrict its own traffic. But, on the other hand, if it fails to do so, it risks incurring massive fines of up to 6% of turnover, which would likely represent a deathblow to a company that already has not turned a profit since 2019. Twitter, in effect, has a financial gun to its head: censor or else.
Wait, what? There has been much talk recently of the Biden administration exerting informal pressure on Twitter and other social media to censor unwelcome content and voices, and lawsuits have even been launched against the Government for infringing the alleged victims’ First Amendment rights. But all that such pressure appears thus far to have consisted of are some chummy nudges in emails.
There has surely not been any threat of fines. How could there be without a law authorising the executive branch to impose them? And such a law would be blatantly unconstitutional, since precisely what the First Amendment states concerning freedom of speech is that “Congress shall make no law… abridging” it.
But there’s the rub. Congress, needless to say, has not made any such law. But what if a foreign power made such a law and it de facto abridged the freedom of speech also of Americans?
Unbeknownst to most Americans, this has in fact occurred and their First Amendment rights are being vitiated, namely, by the European Union. There is a financial gun pointed at Twitter. But it is not the Biden administration, but rather the European Commission, under the leadership of Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, that has its finger on the trigger.
The law in question is the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which was passed by the European Parliament last July 5th amidst almost total indifference – in Europe as much as in the United States – despite its momentous and disastrous implications for freedom of speech worldwide.
The DSA gives the European Commission the power to impose fines of up to 6% of global turnover on “very large online platforms or very large online search engines” that it finds to be non-compliant with its censorship requirements. “Very large” is defined as any platform or search engine that has over 45 million users in the EU. Note that while the size criterion is limited to users in the EU, the sanction is based precisely on the company’s global turnover.
The DSA has been designed to function in combination with the EU’s so-called Code of Practice on Disinformation: an ostensibly voluntary code for “combatting disinformation” – a.k.a. censoring – that was originally launched in 2018 and of which Twitter, Facebook/Meta and Google/YouTube are all signatories.
But with the passage of the DSA, the Code of Practice is evidently not so “voluntary” anymore. There is no need for complex legal analyses to show that the sanction provisions in the DSA are intended as the enforcement mechanism for the Code of Practice. The European Commission has said so itself – and in a tweet no less!
In fact, the Code has never really been all that voluntary. The Commission had already made its desire to ‘tame’ the U.S. tech giants known previously, and it had already flexed its muscles, imposing massive fines on Google and Facebook for other alleged offences.
Moreover, it has been brandishing the threat of the DSA fines since December 2020, when it first put forward the DSA legislation. (In the European Union, the Commission, the EU’s executive branch, has sole authority to initiate legislation. Quaint American notions like the separation of powers are not a thing in the EU.) The eventual passage of the legislation by the parliament has always been treated as a mere formality. Indeed, the above-cited tweet was posted on June 16th of this year, three weeks before the parliament voted on the law!
Curiously, the publication of the draft legislation coincided with the authorisation and subsequent rollout of the first COVID-19 vaccines in the EU: the legislation was unveiled on December 15th and the first COVID-19 vaccine, that of BioNTech and Pfizer, was authorised by the Commission just six days later. Vaccine sceptics or critics would quickly become the principal target of EU-driven online censorship thereafter.
Six months earlier, in June 2020, the Commission had already placed the focus of the Code firmly on alleged “Covid-19 disinformation” by launching a so-called Fighting COVID-19 Disinformation Monitoring Programme, in which all Code signatories were expected to participate. Some attempts had already been made at monitoring compliance with the Code, and signatories were expected to submit annual reports. But, as part of the COVID-19 monitoring program, signatories were now required – “voluntarily”, of course – to submit monthly reports to the Commission specifically dedicated to their COVID-19-related censorship efforts. The rhythm of submission was subsequently scaled back to bimonthly.
Twitter’s reports, for example, contain detailed statistics on Covid-related content removal and account suspensions. The below chart, showing the evolution of these numbers from February 2021 (shortly after vaccine rollout) through April 2022, is taken from Twitter’s latest available report from June of this year.
Note that the data concern content removed and accounts suspended globally, i.e., Twitter’s efforts to satisfy the Commission’s censorship expectations do not only affect the accounts of users based in the EU, but of users all around the world.
The fact that many, if not most, of the accounts that have been suspended in this connection were written in English raises particularly troubling issues. In the aftermath of Brexit, after all, only around 1.5% of the EU’s population are native English speakers. Even supposing that policing speech was a good thing, what business does the EU have policing speech, or requiring social media platforms to police speech, in English, any more, say, than in Urdu or Arabic?
The Twitter report and those of other Code signatories can be downloaded here. If the numbers were to be continued, they would undoubtedly show a sharp upturn in censorship activities starting in late June and early July. Twitter users interested in the subject could not help but have noticed the massive purge of Covid dissident accounts that occurred over the summer.
And this upturn was in fact entirely to be expected, since on June 16th – the day the European Commission posted its warning to online platforms reproduced above and three weeks before the passage of the DSA – the Commission announced the adoption of a new, “strengthened” Code of Practice on Disinformation.
The timing was surely not coincidental. Rather, the adoption of the “strengthened” Code of Practice and the passage of the DSA served as a kind of one-two punch, putting “very large online platforms and search engines” – Twitter, Meta/Facebook and Google/YouTube, in particular – on notice about what would be in store for them if they failed to fulfill the EU’s censorship requirements.
Not only does the new Code contain no fewer than 44 “commitments” that signatories are expected to meet, but it also contains a deadline for meeting them: namely, six months after signature of the Code. For original signatories of the new Code like Twitter, Meta and Google, this would bring us to December. Hence, the sudden rush of Twitter et al. to prove their censorship bona fides.
The “strengthened” Code was supposedly written by the signatories themselves, but under extensive “guidance” from the European Commission that was first made available in May 2021. Chillingly, the Commission “guidance” refers to the kind of censorship data presented above as “key performance indicators”. (Different euphemisms are used in the Code itself.)
As part of the new Code, moreover, signatories will participate in a “permanent task-force” chaired by the European Commission and that will also include “representatives of the European External Action Service,” i.e., the EU’s foreign service.
Think about this for a moment. For the last several months, American commentators have been up in arms about occasional, informal contacts between social media companies and the Biden administration, whereas those same companies have been systematically reporting back to the European Commission on their censorship efforts for the last two years now and they will henceforth be part of a permanent task force on “combatting disinformation” – a.k.a. censoring – chaired by the European Commission.
While the former may or may not constitute collusion, the latter is obviously something much more than mere collusion. It is a matter of explicit EU policy and law that directly subordinates online platforms to the Commission’s censorship agenda and requires them to implement it on pain of ruinous fines.
Note that the DSA gives the Commission “exclusive” – in effect, dictatorial – powers to determine compliance and to apply sanction. For the online platforms, the Commission is judge, jury and executioner.
Again, there is no need to enter into the tortuous details of the legislative text to show this. All official EU pronouncements on the DSA highlight the fact. See here, for instance, from the parliament’s Internal Market Committee, which notes that the Commission will also be able to “inspect a platform’s premises and get access to its databases and algorithms”.
Does anyone really imagine that the Biden administration has anything remotely like this sort of capacity to direct the actions of online platforms? Make no mistake about it. Twitter censorship is government censorship. But the government in question is not the US Government, but rather the European Union, and the EU is, in effect, imposing its censorship on the entire world.
Those hoping that Elon Musk’s buying Twitter, if it does indeed come to pass, will put an end to Twitter censorship are going to be in for a rude awakening. Elon Musk will be facing the same conundrum as Twitter’s present management and will be just as much hostage to the EU’s censorship requirements.
Lest there be any doubt about this, consider the below video, which, despite the forced smiles, has indeed something of the feel of a hostage video. In early May – just a couple of weeks after Twitter accepted Musk’s original purchase offer and, yet again, before the European parliament had even had the opportunity to vote on the DSA – the EU’s Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton traveled to Austin, Texas, to explain the “new regulation” to Musk.
Breton then memorialised Musk’s cringeworthy submission to the EU’s demands in the video posted on his Twitter feed.
Today @elonmusk and I wanted to share a quick message with you on platform regulation
— Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton) May 9, 2022#DSA pic.twitter.com/nvP5FEXECY
Robert Kogon is a pen name for a widely-published financial journalist, a translator and researcher working in Europe. Subscribe to his Substack. This article was first published at the Brownstone Institute.
Stop Press: PayPal is updating its Acceptable Use Policy in November, apparently granting itself the power to deduct $2,500 from users’ accounts if they promote ‘misinformation’. Resist the Mainstream has more.
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What astonishes me about Germany is their extraordinary inability to learn from their past.
It’s certainly the treachery of the Leftards, and their abject masochism, that baffles me. Do they think they and their families are somehow impervious to their social engineering and suicidal policies? But the Left and Islam make suitable bedfellows when we look at their objectives, it seems;
”Islam is a religion built atop an easily collapsed house of cards — namely, the very self-serving and opportunistic words and deeds of its founder. Therefore, silencing any criticism against Muhammad has long been essential to Islam’s survival. Left unchecked, this “verbal war” will have a snowball effect: Other Muslims, exposed to such critical thinking, will start thinking critically, ultimately rebelling against and overthrowing the Islamic order.
Now consider how this applies to the so-called “Left.” Every day, from virtually every official institution and channel — academia, media, government, etc. — we are bombarded with very obvious and ludicrous lies (for example, that women can become men, that men can become pregnant, and so on and so forth). Does that mean most Americans believe this? No. But getting you to believe what is unbelievable has never really been the goal.
Rather, the ultimate goal is to condition you to never publicly challenge the official narrative. You must never openly blaspheme the official cult, thereby encouraging others to blasphemy and apostacy — the dreaded snowball effect every regime fears.
The Left cares little if, in the quiet of your own mind, you refuse to play along. All that matters is that you formally go along — that you formally acquiesce, even if through silent though implicit consent.
In short, the Left wants you to dread the consequences of openly defying its narrative — which, like Islam, is also built atop an easily collapsed house of cards.”
https://stream.org/dont-speak-radical-muslims-and-triggered-leftists-are-the-conjoined-twins-of-offense/
excellent
Here’s another ‘misunderstanding’, quoted in the article:
We always differentiated [between Islam and political Islam or Islamism].
Such a differentiation is false. izlam is a political ideology promoted by a death cult: death to unbelievers, death to apostates, death to those who mock or criticise izlam, death to innocent people jihadis choose to bomb, stab, chop, kill by vehicle to make a political point, death to disobedient daughters who prefer Western culture . . .
Hindu thuggees also believed in death, but they were regarded as a cult not a religion. Why is izlam regarded as a ‘world religion’? Sheer global numbers achieved by conquest/conversion and rapid reproduction.
What are ‘modern’ or ‘moderate’ muzlims? Are they of any use or help to us in the West in vocally opposing jihadists? No, they’re fearful and quiet, with good reason.
When push comes to shove, only genuine apostates will resist the call to rise up and join in the victory for izlam in yet another country ripe for the taking. The apostates won’t survive for long nor will anyone else who refuses to submit.
Newborns unfortunate enough to be born into izlam have ‘alluah akbar’ whispered into their ears, the beginning of an intense lifelong indoctrination that only very strong-minded people (such as the apostate who burns korans in Sweden) can reject.
izlam likes to refer to itself as the ‘Religion of Peace’, a lying slogan that some very stupid Western politicians including Dubya Bush & Dave Cameron liked to parrot after 9/11 and 7/7.
The ‘ROP’ calls itself that because it believes that PEACE on earth will come about only when they have obeyed allah by conquering/converting every nation to izlam – bringing about total submission of the world to allah.
Therefore, no more warfare.
Except, of course, the fighting for dominance between sunni, shia, wasabi and every other sect and sub-sect of izlam.
Agreed. They seem to think the danger to Germany is right wing National Socialism.
The true danger is that so many are easily led and will swallow whatever the ‘authorities’ shovel in their direction.
Since 2020 I realised the Germans are not unique in this respect. A significant portion of our own population was proven to be susceptible to extreme viewpoints at the expense of others. Also NZ, Australia, Canada, France, Austria, etc…
A very sobering realisation.
Eh? The authorities in Germany, France, UK etc have learnt from the past. What they have learnt is the more fear you create in a society, the easier it is to control.
In Japan they refer to immigrants as ”street-shitters”, and given the amount of footage I’ve seen of migrants using the public outdoor spaces as toilets I can attest to that. The Japanese have the right idea though, as do Hungary, and I’ll defer to Gad Saad, the Obe-Wan Kenobi of such things;
”Take Japan. It has a strong sense of identity such that it does not wish to have its culture and people invaded by immigrants. Hence, it has decided that few immigrants can become Japanese let alone illegal immigrants. Do they have a right to do that? Does a nation have a right to decide that it wishes to protect its culture, heritage, religion, etc? Does Saudi Arabia have a right to state that it wishes to remain forevermore an Islamic country? If the answer is “yes” then why is it objectionable for the West to say that they wish to maintain a Judeo-Christian identity? An ethos of Western values rooted in individual freedom and liberty. Regrettably, due to suicidal empathy, most immigrants who came to the West 20+ years ago to escape the hellish societies from which they came, are now being drowned by the same cultures from which they escaped. Individuals of the host societies no longer recognize their societies because they have been Islamized at a breathtaking rate. Are Western people allowed to be worried about the erasure of their societies or should they submit willingly by praying at the altar of suicidal empathy?”
https://x.com/GadSaad/status/1801358399801626962
Apparently we need all these millions of migrants because the leftists say “we have an ageing population” and “who will do all the NHS and care jobs”. ——-But Japan doesn’t seem to think the answer to any such alleged problems is to import millions of people and they certainly don’t get overrun with illegal aliens. Apparently the Japanese encourage high birthrates by giving tax breaks for people to have children.
What a squirming bunch of WEF/UN parasites we have deciding how we all live in this country and as Europe is turning to the right, here as usual we are so dumb we are about to do the opposite and elect more leftist mass immigration clutter.
The excuse of falling birth-rate and increasing aging population to justify inward migration does not agree with reality. Since I was born the UK population has grown by nearly 27 million, and mostly in the last 10 or so years. Also a falling population will be a benefit as more space will become available and house prices will fall allowing our young to afford homes. This last aspect could encourage young people to have children.
As you say it is the WEF/UN parasites that are driving this. Mass migration is a weapon.
” The concept of national sovereignty has been immutable, indeed a sacred principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation.”
UN’s Commission on Global Governance:
Yep
‘United Nations’ is a complete misnomer. That corrupt and rotting self-serving institution cares nothing for nations – it wants a One World government, a dictatorship with every enemy of democracy within it obliterating our sovereignty as nations and freedom as individuals.
President Trump was considering cutting American funding of the UN before he was robbed of his second term by charlatans. Hopefully, he’ll be re-elected, cut off the funding and encourage other Western countries to do the same.
I quite like visits from Jehovah’s Witnesses. I particularly like their willingness to debate their beliefs. They are clearly sincere believers and if they fail to win their argument they will walk away and maybe try another day.
Compare this with the dogmatic approach of Islamists who are unwilling to debate, and have frequently been observed to resort to violence when challenged. Indeed they fight amongst themselves over differences in interpretation of their holy scripts.
I remain forever sceptical of the claim that is the religion of peace and they will fight anyone who doesn’t agree.
Moslems began fighting amongst themselves as soon as Mohammed died. Then there was the Iran Iraq war and the current conflict in Yemen.
I think a few years passed between the death of Muhammad and the Iran / Iraq war.
Of course. I should have written ‘More recently…’
So what if the German Authorities called him “Enemy of Islam”? We should not be in the situation in any Western country where must watch what we say in case it provokes someone to try and murder you. It should not be wrong to express dislike of someone or a group especially at it seems perfectly acceptable to express dislike of Christianity and white people.
Since TRAITOR Smirkel betrayed Germany and the Germans by admitting millions of enemy invaders, the subsequent governments seem to cheerfully acquiesce in the izlamification of the land and the people they are supposed to protect. Their enemedia is equally to blame.
When those responsible are defeated by the AdF patriots, Smirkel and her successors should be tried and imprisoned for treason. The same applies to France when Marine le Pin triumphs, and the UK when our traitorous Left is beaten.
In every Western nation whose treacherous Leftard governments have flooded them with enemies and terrorists, those with blood on their hands deserve the severe backlash of anger and draconian punishment.
There is no political Islam, Islamism, modern muslims, there is just Islam.
Agreed and it’s all barbaric.
Cui bono? This is another example of the ‘authorities’ in Western ‘democracies’ provoking trouble and fear in the electorate which facilitates control orders. Katherine Gunn the ex-GCHQ whistle blower, makes plain there were sone exceedingly dodgy things going on with the murder of Sir Denis Amess MP. Almost every time there is a terrorist incident in the UK the m.s.m. report that the assailant was known to the authorities. Big events like 9/11 and the London bus bombings also benefit the ‘authorities.’