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How the EU Killed Elon Musk’s Twitter Amnesty

by Robert Kogon
7 December 2022 9:00 AM

Elon Musk’s announced “general amnesty” week has come and gone and there has been no sign of any amnesty at all. In particular, none of the – on Twitter’s own count – 11,230 accounts that have been suspended for violating the platform’s “COVID-19 misinformation” policy appear to have been restored.

Many have been wondering why the announced ‘amnesty’ has not occurred. But the answer is obvious. The European Union vetoed it.

“The people have spoken. Amnesty begins next week. Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” Musk famously tweeted after an online poll he had posted resulted in a landslide in favor of ‘amnesty’. But the European Commission evidently believes in a different God. 

Thus, on November 30th, just two days after the amnesty was supposed to have gotten underway, the EU’s Internal Market Commissioner, Thierry Breton, posted an eerie five-second clip on Twitter, showing a grim, stone-faced Musk on a video monitor being lectured by Breton, who is himself comfortably seated in a Brussels office on the backdrop of the EU flag. 

I welcome @elonmusk's intent to get Twitter 2.0 ready for the #DSA🇪🇺

Huge work ahead still — as Twitter will have to implement transparent user policies, significantly reinforce content moderation and tackle disinformation.

Looking forward to seeing progress in all these areas. pic.twitter.com/Nc7sGlb9YL

— Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton) November 30, 2022

We cannot hear what Breton is telling Musk, since the clip has been posted without audio. The video conference appears to have taken place earlier on the same day. 

The accompanying tweet reads: “I welcome @elonmusk‘s intent to get Twitter 2.0 ready for the #DSA Huge work ahead still – as Twitter will have to implement transparent user policies, significantly reinforce content moderation and tackle disinformation. Looking forward to seeing progress in all these areas.”

The “DSA” is the EU’s recently adopted Digital Services Act. As discussed in my earlier article here, the DSA threatens “very large” online platforms like Twitter with ruinous fines of up to 6% of global turnover if they fail to comply with what the European Commission construes as their obligations under the EU’s so-called Code of Practice on Disinformation. The main focus of the ‘Code’ for the last two-plus years has been a “Fighting COVID-19 Disinformation Monitoring Programme”, which was instituted under it.

For further details on what exactly the EU Commission is demanding of Musk and Twitter to demonstrate compliance, Breton coyly links to a Mastodon thread containing a “DSA Checklist.” Item no. 3 (see below) amounts to a not-so-subtle reprimand of Musk for having proposed a general amnesty and, in particular, for having done so on the basis of the ‘Vox Populi, Vox Dei‘ principle. It calls merely for “appeal procedures for banned accounts” – i.e. no ‘amnesty’, whether general or partial – and insists: “Content policies have to be applied consistently and based on objective criteria (e.g. not via a poll).”

Item no. 1 demands that Musk and Twitter “reinforce content moderation” – a.k.a. censorship – and somehow, in the manner of squaring the circle, “protect freedom of speech” at the same time. Note that Breton’s tweet and the introductory post to his Mastodon thread both indeed call on Musk to “significantly reinforce content moderation”, thus making clear that the Commission not only disapproves of the prospect of banned accounts being restored, but also of the relatively more laissez-faire attitude that Musk has thus far adopted toward current users. 

But perhaps most tellingly, Breton’s introductory post notes his satisfaction at hearing that Musk “has read [the Digital Services Act] carefully” – highly unlikely given the length and complexity of the legislation – “and considers it as a sensible approach to implement on a worldwide basis”. The emphasis is mine. 

This is to say that the EU’s censorship requirements are to be applied not only within the EU itself, but globally. As discussed in my previous article, unbeknownst to most of the rest of the world, this is in fact what is happening, including in the United States, where any such legally-required abridgment of freedom of speech is obviously incompatible not only with the spirit, but also with the letter of the First Amendment.

Breton’s complete set of demands can be read here.

Robert Kogon is a pen name for a widely-published financial journalist, translator and researcher working in Europe. Follow him at Twitter here and read his Substack here. This article was first published by the Brownstone Institute.

Tags: AmnestyCensorshipCOVID-19Digital Services ActElon MuskEUFree SpeechMisinformationTwitter

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22 Comments
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Monro
Monro
1 year ago

Once you have understood this, you have understood ‘pandemic!’ ‘the world is on fire!’, nut zero, ‘Blair’s Britain’ and everything:

‘Combining data for the past five years, from 2018 through 2022, allows for a more robust analysis of demographic differences in views about marijuana legalization than is possible from a single poll. Using this aggregate, Gallup finds support for legalization averaged 67% among the general population but varied significantly by subgroup. Conservative, religious and older Americans are the least supportive, while liberal, nonreligious and younger Americans are the most supportive.

Specifically, subgroups whose support for legalization exceeds the national average by 10 or more percentage points include those with no religious preference (89%), self-identified liberals (84%), Democrats (81%)’

‘Marijuana Views Linked to Ideology, Religiosity, Age’ Nov. 2022

‘….the concentration of THC in cannabis has increased significantly over time meaning that cannabis used today is typically much stronger than previously.’

‘…people who use high potency cannabis are more likely to experience addiction than those using low potency products. It also suggests that people using high potency cannabis are more likely to experience a psychotic disorder, such as schizophrenia.’

‘High-strength cannabis linked to addiction and mental health problems’ July 2022

Last edited 1 year ago by Monro
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RW
RW
1 year ago
Reply to  Monro

Cannabis addiction is a very real phenomenon[*] but this has nothing to do with the perennial chestnut of the new superhigh potency weed. I’ve already read these stories more than 20 years ago. But then, that’s just another instance of participiants of the so-called culture wars on all two sides being equally corrupt and equally willing to use bad fabrications to further thier dubious causes.

[*] If you’re used to consuming Cannabis-products all day, suddenly stopping this will result in a very miserable feeling one will usually desire to end as soon as possible. This lasts for about two weeks and needs a conscious effort to overcome. Before I moved to England, I gave my last piece of hashish as present to someone (much thanked for in the falsely cozy ways of this subculture) because I had grown intellectually tired of this (and of the people associated with it). That wasn’t exactly pleasant for about half a month but I like my non-stoned self better.

21
-4
Monro
Monro
1 year ago
Reply to  RW

You are entitled, of course, to your own opinion.

Others will base theirs on the evidence:

‘This study finds strong evidence of an association between cannabis use disorder (CUD) and schizophrenia among both males and females, and the magnitude of this association appears to be consistently larger among males than females, especially among those aged 16–25. Importantly, 15% of cases of schizophrenia in males may be preventable if CUD was avoided. Although CUD is not responsible for most schizophrenia cases in Denmark, it appears to contribute to a non-negligible and steadily increasing proportion over the past five decades. In young males (21–30 years, possibly up to 40), the proportion may even be as high as 25–30%. There are global increases in legalization of nonmedical use of cannabis, increases in THC content of cannabis and in total THC doses consumed (Caulkins, Pardo, & Kilmer,) increases in the prevalence of cannabis use and CUD, and decrease in public perception of harm from cannabis use (Chiu, Hall, Chan, Hides, & Leung,)

Alongside the increasing evidence that CUD is a modifiable risk factor for schizophrenia, our findings underscore the importance of evidence-based strategies to regulate cannabis use and to effectively prevent, screen for, and treat CUD as well as schizophrenia.’

Association between cannabis use disorder and schizophrenia….May 2023

9
-2
LaptopMaestro
LaptopMaestro
1 year ago
Reply to  Monro

Addicts don’t like to hear the truth.

11
-1
RW
RW
1 year ago
Reply to  LaptopMaestro

You are hereby awarded the medal for the idiot who’d certainly be posting this. It’s truly deserved. I was actually reluctant to publish the comment just because one of your species was going to react in exactly this way to it. But since it’s widely claimed and believed that cannabis is actually not addictive, I thought pointing out that it definitely is was worthwhile.

PS: You’ve also crossed into illegal territory here by making factually wrong statements about me I could easily disprove weren’t you hiding your name.

Last edited 1 year ago by RW
4
-6
RW
RW
1 year ago
Reply to  Monro

Your text has absolutely no relation to my comment which was about two things

1) The wrong myth of cannabis not being addictive.
2) The eternal superweed hoax.

5
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Marque1
Marque1
1 year ago
Reply to  RW

As I have mentioned before I have a few mental problems from the Army. After my wife died I fell apart and spent 20 years in both a bottle and smoking industrial quantities of ‘blow’. I am clear of both after finally getting some help, other than the offered prescription ‘zombie’ drugs. NHS Veterans (Wales) were marvellous in helping me understand and work through my problems although it was brutal. I did not start smoking it until I was in my mid forties and I think that this makes a big difference, my brain is fully formed and I was, ostensibly, an adult. I often wonder if the age at which these others started is ever taken into account, or if it is just monstered to fit a position without reference to the still growing brains of the young. Alcohol and other drugs do affect the development of the immature mind, as is well known. Including abuse by a parent while pregnant (Greta Thunberg, allegedly) causing FASD.

Last edited 1 year ago by Marque1
13
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Monro
Monro
1 year ago
Reply to  RW

You are clearly too lazy to have read the reference, or even the brief quotes from it, thereby undermining your own protestations.

Bon voyage!

0
-3
Dinger64
Dinger64
1 year ago

It’s bloody well causing me mental health problems having to listen to all their shyte!

111
0
nige.oldfart
nige.oldfart
1 year ago
Reply to  Dinger64

Same here, I keep getting the great urge to go and biet da schidt out of something that really deserves it. Which is causing mental conflict with the part that says that this is not rational. Also with all this safety baggage that is toted these days, why has no one been done for causing harm to others by their actions, as indicated within the introduction of the H&S at work act 1974, from which all the ails of today are derived.

13
0
A Y M
A Y M
1 year ago

In order to maintain most woke ideological religious tenets, you must hold multiple counter factual lies and inconsistencies in your mind. Moreover one must constantly change these ideas once they are proven false without using the change of information as a basis for reevaluating your information sources and your peer group networks.

To continuously lie to yourself requires a lot of emotional energy which the woke cult tries to keep fired up through media dog whistles. However the right wingers are also caught up in these hysterical stories and suffer as a consequence. For them, it’s constantly seeing lies endorsed by the left and ratified by the news and media never seeming to improve and always leading to more disasters. Then the ever present impending fear that it’s all going to hell and there’s nothing we can do about it, including banging away at our cultist lefty friends and family in the vain hope they will “wake up” and have their heads deeply buried in the sand.

Its a war on all our minds, woke or awake.

Last edited 1 year ago by A Y M
66
0
RW
RW
1 year ago

56% of white, liberal women aged 18–29 had ever been diagnosed with a mental health condition by their doctors

Old joke, but has to be made here: Didn’t you just write that they were woke liberals?

This sort of Left Wing Politics is a mental health problem. Think running around with leaky facemasks to protect oneself against submicroscopic invisible enemies lurking everywhere, believing that a weather beast god will one day kill us all and that some demonic superhuman entity places human souls in wrong bodies solely to torment them.

Doesn’t strike me as particularly sane and balanced.

63
0
TheGreenAcres
TheGreenAcres
1 year ago

Holding multiple contradictory opinions at the same time can’t be good for one’s mental health either.

On a related topic I heard that a BBC reporter at a presser for the Women’s football asked a Moroccan player how many lesbians where in the team. Completely ignorant of the fact that not every country is as tolerant of that sort of thing as Britain – and despite the same BBC regularly contributing to the argument that Britain is a sexist, homophobic hell-hole of oppression.

26
0
For a fist full of roubles
For a fist full of roubles
1 year ago
Reply to  TheGreenAcres

And there was me thinking they were referring to trans women who had not changed their sexual preferences once they had transitioned.

12
0
TheBasicMind
TheBasicMind
1 year ago

No need for an explanation or question really. Being woke is an identity relationship (as in algebraic identity) with being mentally ill. It requires devotion to an ideology beyond reason and elevation of a victim mentality over healthy self sufficiency. It has taken over from traditional left wing politics. Plus as Jordan Peterson points out, as the latest research shows, it is also accompanied by a big dollop of psychopathy.

22
0
For a fist full of roubles
For a fist full of roubles
1 year ago

I have always thought that supporting left wing politics was a mental condition, particularly of young people. Most tend to grow out of it as they grow up and assume the responsibilities of adult life.

29
-2
Mogwai
Mogwai
1 year ago

One does not need to look far at all in Clown World for examples of mentally ill people trying to normalize their behaviour. I’m pretty sure adults identifying as babies would qualify. Eat your heart out Damian Hirst;

https://twitter.com/OliLondonTV/status/1683464633527549952

https://twitter.com/_The_Bayou_Boy/status/1683112626664898560

10
0
Stuart
Stuart
1 year ago

I think you will find it’s mental health problems causing the left wing politics

30
-1
Jonathan M
Jonathan M
1 year ago
Reply to  Stuart

Just what I was going to say!

10
0
sskinner
sskinner
1 year ago

“Could Left-wing politics be causing mental health problems?”
What?!! Perhaps Left-wing politics is the mental illness. Prolonged efforts of a person (or the group) to keep reality outside of their head is not conducive to good mental health.

“Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.”
Thomas Sowell

11
0
Jabby Mcstiff
Jabby Mcstiff
1 year ago

It is a very small number of people who give a monkey’s about these trendy ideas. I think that even in hotbed USA it was just eight percent. The whole thing is a psy op to convince you that these are the most important issues whilst they fleece you dry.

9
0
Cynical to the core
Cynical to the core
1 year ago

A small proportion will have genuine mental health problems, for the rest it’s a trend, just another bandwagon to jump on or a label that’s a useful tool for getting out of anything they don’t want to do.
It could also be that this is the mollycoddled generation who have been raised to be perpetually offended and taught that the world is a scary place. These young adults have never known the freedom of spending long summer days out with friends with no parental supervision, sorting out their own differences and entertaining themselves. Instead, their lives have been micromanaged by over anxious parents, they’ve been picked up and dropped off everywhere, run crying to the nearest adult if another child called them a name and won prizes for failing because ‘everyone’s a winner’. Now they’re adults they don’t have a clue how to operate in the real world and peddle all this woke crap to try and make it all a bit less scary with the ‘be kind’ message and such like.

4
0
varmint
varmint
1 year ago

Ofcourse when you believe things that are not true you get yourself into a whole lot trouble. Once you think capitalism is evil when infact it has brought billions out of miserable poverty then right away your world view that does not match what is actually happening in the real world will cause you some anxiety. Once you believe that humanity will be wiped out by a little trace gas that makes you glue yourself to the street then perhaps it is long past the time you saw a shrink. etc etc all the way down the list of absurd Liberal Progressive anti human policies.

2
0
DevonBlueBoy
DevonBlueBoy
1 year ago

You don’t have to be a nutter to espouse left wing ideas, but it certainly helps

2
0

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