“L’Etat, c’est moi” – “I am the state” – Louis XIV is supposed to have said. And in a contemporary echo of that famous phrase, EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton repeatedly stressed on Monday that “I am the regulator” when lambasting social media networks for “not having done enough” during the recent French riots and threatening them with sanctions, including even banishment, if they should remain similarly inactive after August 25th.
Not having done enough of what? Well, namely censorship: suppression of content that the European Commission deems to have been in some way or another harmful in the circumstances. Hence, the importance of the August 25th date. For August 25th will mark exactly four months since the European Commission officially designated 17 “Very Large Online Platforms” and two “Very Large Online Search Engines”, and from that date forward, per the below timeline, the designated entities will have to be in compliance with the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which is designed precisely to “regulate” online speech.
Breton made his remarks in conversation with the French public broadcaster France Info, noting that in the future the social media companies will have to be pro-active in deleting content or face sanction. “When there is hateful content,” he said, “content that calls, for example, for revolt, also that calls to kill – because we’ve seen that too, [from] individuals… they will have the obligation to delete it instantly. If they don’t do it, they will be immediately sanctioned.”
Breton did not give any specific examples of content calling for violence, much less murder. But, interestingly, when one of the interviewers repeatedly tried to point the finger at Twitter as one of the main offenders, Breton was quick to correct him, noting that the main offenders, per coverage in the French press, are rather TikTok and Snapchat.
Given the correspondence between the notably young demographics of the French rioters and the demographics of TikTok and Snapchat users, this is hardly surprising. Moreover, the content that has been widely cited as circulating on TikTok and Snapchat – and sometimes indeed reproduced in the traditional French media itself (see here, for instance) – consists not so much of calls to violence, as video documentation of the violence that has occurred.
This proliferation of videos of the French violence on social media and via messaging apps appears to be the real target of Breton’s wrath. Indeed, the Commissioner referred to it himself, even suggesting that platforms were using algorithms to make such material go viral – as if they would have to!
The indulgence shown by Breton towards Twitter is also unsurprising, since many observers (including the present author) noticed videos of the French violence posted on Twitter quickly disappearing. This suggests that Twitter was indeed acting pro-actively to suppress the material in question.
It can be wondered in passing what exactly is the justification for suppressing genuine documentation of the violence and destruction – this is, after all, a form of information, not ‘disinformation’ – and whether its suppression will not in fact create a void that will be filled precisely by inauthentic ‘fake news’. See, for example, this tweet on the burning of an ‘Alcazar’ library in Marseilles. A Twitter ‘Community Note’ correctly points out that the embedded video is of a different building. But it fails to mention that a small municipal library of that name was in fact set on fire by rioters in Marseilles.
Be that as it may, Breton noted that he had recently been to California to run “stress tests” with the American social media companies to ensure their preparedness for the DSA deadline, and he noted that he will go to China next week to discuss the same matter with TikTok. Consider the irony of this: an EU official travelling to China to ensure that a Chinese company is prepared to comply with a European censorship law!
Breton also noted that during his visit to California, Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that he was going to “hire one thousand people” – presumably to serve as human censors – in order to ensure Meta’s compliance with the EU rules.
Nonetheless, the France Info journalists poured some cold water on Breton’s enthusiasm, noting that Meta does not even have any plans yet for rolling out its Twitter-alternative Threads in the European Union and wondering whether an excess of EU regulation might not be making some of the Big Tech companies “skittish”.
In any case, Breton is not wrong that he or, at any rate, the European Commission as such is the regulator. For, speaking of Louis XIV, the DSA invests the Commission, the EU executive, with what are, in effect, absolute powers to determine infractions of the law and apply sanction in the case of non-compliance.
Robert Kogon is a pen name for a widely-published financial journalist, translator and researcher working in Europe. Subscribe to his Substack and follow him on Twitter.
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A bit fucking late to follow the science but I suppose the parasites have had their fill of cash and with the narrative talking apart it’s the ideal time.
That is such a depressing photo; all those boys/young men with identikit semi-military style super short haircuts and all those girls/young women with identikit long straight/flattened hair styles. Yuck. Ugh.
Just the one girl who looks slightly different, ponytail and pinafore.
They are training kids to become Covid Marshalls.
Training them for serfdom.
Predictably, it’s the schoolkids who are revolting…………….
Pictures as above must represent the most searing indictment of any so-called democracy. If any politician cannot look at that photograph and not feel unremitting shame then we are truly lost.
It is grotesque, barbaric and satanic.
Shame on Parliament.
And what’s with all the water bottles? I don’t remember those in classrooms. Has everybody become unusually thirsty in recent years?
Back in my day we used to store water in our bodies. Now due to the modern misplaced obsession with “hydration” or somesuch children are required to store some spare water outside their bodies.
One piece of insane quackery I heard of a few years back had some external person coming into classroom telling children to “hold the water in your mouth, it will hydrate your brain quicker”
People are stupid.
It is an obscene photo of public humiliation and ‘child abuse’ the Vice Squad should be called in !
The one in the front row looks like he’s ready to manage a football team or train a professional ufc fighter.
Can you spot the 35 year old Afghan refugee posing as a 14 year old in the picture?
LOL! Someone gave you a down-vote.
Woah! The truth hurts? Well, down-vote this…
Is anyone going to challenge the Scottish government?
It’s already challenged….
… mentally challenged
Only if you can find a Scot to do it…looks like a long wait.
A dozen MPs.
Gosh.
Full Scale ‘Rebellion’ then!
God help us! What cowardly, self-serving and ignorant dross have we elected to Parliament?
Two years into the shitshow and a handful of the clowns are waking up from their dozy nap and making these lame half-assed gestures of nothingness. Oooh they sent a letter. Dynamite. Hope they remembered the stamp. Roll over, go back to sleep.
“Oooh they sent a letter.”
You sneer, but tomorrow they’re really going to show ’em when they sign that on-line petition!!
They are craven, stupid and sold out!
Too much Daily Mail, BBC and Sky News!
That’s not a gesture of nothingness. It’s (as far as I know) a required part of starting a lawsuit: Send the supposedly offending party a letter detailling your grievances and what should be done about them.
Zahawi said that he wouldn’t maintain masks in schools a day longer than necessary. You & I know that a single day is a day longer than necessary but every reader of this site should be emailing their MP to point out what a nonsensical, cruel & arbitrary measure this is. The teachers went back to work, job done, stop masking kids.
‘Honest’ Nadhim has a history:
“The Tory who made the highest claim in the MP energy expenses scandal has admitted taxpayers’ money was spent on a business at his country estate.
Millionaire Nadhim Zahawi claimed for electricity to run his horse riding school stables and a yard manager’s mobile home.
Mr Zahawi – top of a list of 340 MPs shamed by the Sunday Mirror last week – at first defended his claims but now admits he made a “mistake”.
He told us: “On investigation I have made a mistake with the electricity. I will be paying back any money wrongly claimed immediately and I apologise unreservedly.”
The politician, who claimed almost £6,000 in just one year for energy bills, revealed power for the mobile home and stables was linked to his house.”
Funny how they never make a mistake that sees them under claim.
He has the map of Iraq written all over his face.
Most people end up in court if they make fraudulent claims. Paying back the money doesn’t usually cut it in the real world.
He is a liar. Johnson runs schools for liars.
The same Zahawi who was in the press yesterday saying he was a “lost child” and doesn’t want other children to suffer the same fate, but not saying he was doing what the teaching unions told him to do. Funny that; but a lying hypocritical MP is no surprise any more
Instead of faffing about in court, why doesn’t Sir Graham stand up in Parliament and tell the buffoon to his stupid face that his time is up?
If the 1922 is so ‘powerful’, why is this whole sh*t show still on the road?
Makes me cringe when they call it the ‘Powerful 1922 committee’. They are about as powerful as a fart in a colander.
Well as we know, the court’s have been captured thanks too the Antichrist Blair’s judicial reforms…..but the court case will be interesting at the very least, also hugely important! Can the courts ignore the dearth of scientific peer reviewed studies regarding the efficacy of mask’s? Can they ignore the mounting evidence that prolonged mask usage is in fact very harmful and potentially lethal!
Yes Blair’s “Judicial Reforms” time to review exactly what he did to “British Justice!”
Anyone got the sordid details?
ending double jeopardy was one of his greatest sins.
Our healthcare system is about to experience a tsunami! Potential side effects of jabs include chronic inflammation, because the vaccine continuously stimulates the immune system to produce antibodies. Other concerns include the possible integration of plasmid DNA into the body’s host genome, resulting in mutations, problems with DNA replication, triggering of autoimmune responses, and activation of cancer-causing genes. Alternative COVID cures EXIST. Ivermectin is one of them. While Ivermectin is very effective curing COVID symptoms, it has also been shown to eliminate certain cancers. Do not get the poison jab. Get your Ivermectin today while you still can! https://ivmpharmacy.com
The ‘plan’ is to collapse the NHS by sacking 120,000 of its most dedicated staff and then blamed the ‘unvaxxed’!
Will ‘Medicare’ be invited to take over the NHS? The new staff appear to be arriving in boats at Dover every day!
” Nurse required no qualifications or experience necessary – speaking English beyond ‘Yes’ “No’ and “I want” would be a disadvantage. ( One short practical test required: sticking a large needle into a rubber ball)”
sounds impressive but what ‘plasmid DNA’ are you talking about? The vax uses RNA and plasmids are found in bacteria, not viruses (although they are also used in genetic engineering)
“Tory MPs” have got to go much further than this to stop this diabolical sh*t show!
Why just schools? There’s bugger-all evidence to support the mandation of face nappies in shops, trains, etc, either. They need to go from all aspects of public life, not only schools.
I seem to have attracted a downvote! How about letting us know what you disagree with – do you reckon that there’s loads of evdience that face nappies stop the deadly virus from spreading in shops and on trains?
Indeed….if there is no evidence to support school pupils wearing them then there is no evidence for anyone out in the community. Jenny Harries, head of UKHSA said in the spring of 2020 they were more likely to be harmful worn by ordinary members of the public. What public elevation/ financial uplift intervened for her to disown her own advice.
“The government was sent a letter” – I bet that had the amoral chancers in Westminster shivering in their shoes.
My next door neighbour is retired and likes nothing more than sending stiffly worded letters to the council; I imagine that the MPs letters meet the same fate as my neighbour’s.
I hope it isn’t delivered while they are having another party. Wouldn’t like to interrupt them having a good laugh at a country that will go along with absolutely anything.
If Robert Halfon, chair of the Commons select committee on “education”, is opposed to masks in schools, we can be certain that the leading commercial suppliers to schools (Dell, Pearson, probably Microsoft, maybe Apple, whoever does the catering and insurance and payroll, etc.) are against the policy too. Why? Because that’s how Parliament works.
Halfon is also political director of the Conservative Friends of Israel. I wonder what he thinks of the Israeli wargame for the “next war”, which focused on an “omega variant” of SARSCoV2 to which children were especially variable.
Certainly friends like to keep each other posted on their news.
Let me retell a story…
If that photo was on the BBC website, they’d have had to make sure at least three quarters of the children were black.
But hey, at least there’s a lady with pink hair, so she’s probably representing feminists, strong and powerful women ready to be hired for tough jobs and not complain.
I open this website once a week to laugh at pictures.
Have a laugh on me…
Add some disposable face nappies as well for extra effect!
Yet the Secretary for Education can meet with con party members in Leicester on saturday and not a mask in sight.
MPs not backing thislegal move is condoning child abuse. Their names should be listed.
Can any MPs be trusted to back a legal challenge that goes against the clearly stated aims of the globalists to control us via Biological Passports, through which they intend introducing a digital currency, by which they’ll micromanage every aspect of our lives?
Take the calibre of the Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting.
Streeting published this personal statement on Twitter: “Also I think Blair should be tried at the Hague for the various war crimes to his sordid name”.
Just a few weeks later Streeting saw fit to publish another personal statement on Twitter: “Two people have now called Blair a war criminal to me. What utter rubbish. Libellous and just plain wrong”.
A volte-face extraordinaire. Shameless beyond all reason. And this fellow is lined up to be the CEO of the UK’s Health Services? Take a look at his picture, he’s a man-child. He’s little more than a slobbering baby in an adult’s body.
I can imagine that after he published the first tweet, a couple of burly men knocked on his door at 3 in the morning. Wes jumped up expecting it to be Prince William looking for an autograph and advice on how to be king.
Wes puffs out his chest and opens the door. The burly men push him backwards into the sitting room and shove him down on the couch. Then they show him pictures of something going on in a public toilet.
Wes bursts into tears and runs sobbing to his bedroom where he clings tightly to his teddy bear. Then he calls his mum, and through tears he tells her that big bad homophobic men broke into his house and lied to him that all his boyfriends were underage.
“I’m an MP,” cried Wes, “I get them put in jail for ever and ever and ever …”
“There there,” mum tells him, “don’t cry pet … I’ll be ’round to hug and cuddle you in 10 minutes. By the way, pet, I was talking to some people tonight, and they said Tony Blair isn’t really a war criminal. I think you should go on Twitter and say nice things about him.”
“Tony Blair?” … who is he? … oh yeah … that fellow that was once married to Margaret Thatcher … OK, mum, I’ll tweet that he’s a nice man … can I do it tomorrow, mum … I’m tired now.”
“That’s a good boy … you’re a very good boy Wes and I’m bringing round your favourite jelly.”
“Oh, yum yum, thanks mum … oh mum … what’s a war criminal?”
People really need to take a long hard look at the tripe that are ruling them. And all forms of electronic voting needs to be done away with right now.
Meanwhile in Germany…
1. Sport in school from now on only masked
2. Immunity after infection shortened from 6 months to 3 months – without any explanation (but it’s clear to see that the goal is to pretend that the natural immunity is no better than the vaccine immunity – and also to artificially and suddenly increase the number of “unvaccinated” to continue the sales campaign)
Also: chief health madman proud of himself that he ordered 130 million new vaccine doses.
Kids take off your masks. You have the authority to protect yourself and your health. Parents wake up. Masks are dangerous when worn for extended periods. Stand up for your child. You have the authority to do this.
It’s about time. Hopefully the perpetrators will be in court soon charged with child abuse and get what they deserve.
Not only is there no rational basis for this policy, there is no rational basis for masks, for anyone, full stop.
METROPOLITAN POLICE FINALLY LAUNCH MAJOR INVESTIGATION
Metropolitan Police Crime Reference Number 6029679/21
The UK’s biggest criminal investigation is now live. Hammersmith CID and The Metropolitan Police have accepted and are reviewing 1000’s of pages of evidence and have agreed there is enough to proceed. All UK police forces have been made aware of this investigation.
The case was lodged on 20th December 2021 by a group including Dr Sam White, lawyer
Philip Hyland (PJH Law), Lawyer Lois Bayliss (Broad Yorkshire Law) and retired policeman
Mark Sexton. Requests for assistance have been made to international lawyer
Robert F Kennedy Jnr (nephew of J F Kennedy), Dr Reiner Fuellmich (German lawyer
who exposed the Volkswagen Audi emissions scandal), Dr. Michael Yeadon (Former Pfizer
Vice President), plus countless other doctors, professors, virologists, NHS whistleblowers,
biologists, data experts and lawyers nationally and internationally
A separate filing has also been made to The International Criminal Court in The
Hague. File number: OTP-CR-473/21.
Anyone in Hertfordshire reading this needs to consider the following.
It makes no difference to what the government decides in Herts as unfortunately, the Director of Herts Public health will continue to enforce the mask manadate. People really need to check out why the seemingly unqualified, convicted criminal Jim McManus wields so much power in his position of Director of Public Health. The man is not even a qualified doctor – if he were he would have been struck off.
Will anyone be prosecuted over the imposition of all these laws rules, etc which we know to be unnecessary,fear inducing, immensely damaging? No? Then what the hell is the use of all this backward looking?