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
— Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton) November 30, 2022
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
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.
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The people will see through it
An Italian acquaintance of ours thinks Meloni is a “Fascist”. I’m still waiting to read news reports from Italy of state bully-boys on the streets checking people’s papers, state censorship, mass restrictions of basic freedoms, forced medical treatment. Ah hold on, that was the previous government during “covid”…
Nowadays, Fascist is a gender id acquired by being referred to as Fascists by people who always refer to their political opponents as Fascists. No particular behaviour or support for any particular set of policies is required for that. Oppositon to any policy all good people want to see implemented is enough. And the good people are those to determine who the good and the bad people are.
Exactly
What I find frustrating is that “good” people with otherwise apparently functioning intellect fall for this. When you ask them to define “fascism” or name actions or policies of some hated political leader or group they are unable to. Pathetic.
Traditionally, German citizenship was based on the so-called ius sanguinis also used in other parts of the world: Someone is born as German if his parents are Germans. To this date, that’s stated in article 116 of the German constitution:
(1) Deutscher im Sinne dieses Grundgesetzes ist vorbehaltlich anderweitiger gesetzlicher Regelung, wer die deutsche Staatsangehörigkeit besitzt oder als Flüchtling oder Vertriebener deutscher Volkszugehörigkeit oder als dessen Ehegatte oder Abkömmling in dem Gebiete des Deutschen Reiches nach dem Stande vom 31. Dezember 1937 Aufnahme gefunden hat.
This refers to the rules who’d be considered German in place before 1945 with an addition that Germans expatriated for political reasons between 1933 and 1945 may reacquire German citizenship if they so desire. This was changed during the Schröder led red-green coalition (SPD and Greens) in power around the turn of the century. As Scholz was already a professional SPD politician at that time, he’s obviously aware of this and is just trying to Nazi-paint the people who were opposed to this change of the German constitution at that time for an audience which is young enough that it doesn’t remember this.
This means the real meaning of his statement is If you’re opposed to policies championed and implemtented by SPD and Greens the last time the governed in Germany, prepare for a visit by our secret state police. And he certainly means our, ie the Gestapo (secret state police) controlled by SPD and Greens. These guys are truly ‘democrats’ their political allies from the SED (currently callled Die Linke/ The Left) can be proud of.
Addition: The real name of this secret state police – Verfassungschutz – means secret service tasked with protecting the constitution against its enemies. Functionally, this is closer to the traditional GDR term Staatssicherheit/ Stasi — secret service tasked with protecting that state.
Love to hear from whoever downvoted this as to where RW has gone wrong
Correction: The Schröder-government didn’t really change the constitution but created additional law about granting German citizenship to foreigners without German heritage. The principal beneficaries of this were ethnic turks and their descendants who had come to Germany for work on initiative of earlier SPD governments. This created the paradoxical situation that there’s nowadays a fairy large distinctive ethnic group of people with their own culture and traditions who do not desire to integrate into German society and who’d never refer to themselves as Germans (the term, in its Turkish form of Alman, is actually an insult among members of this group) but who are nevertheless regarded as German by the state.
This renders Scholz’s ranting even less coherent: He’s in favour of certain laws passed under the aegis of his own party and its most important coalition partner (Greens). And these are supposed to be sacrosanct to all others. Different opinions or even real political opposition will not be tolerated, IOW, mere voters must not decide that they prefer something else instead.
Branding patriotic small c conservative voters across the West as “deplorables” by the arrogant Globalists isn’t going to work. Not in the USA; not in the EU and not in the UK.