Freedom Of Speech - Global Edition

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member

The European Union Is Not Happy That Elon Musk Is Interviewing Trump Tonight








Yet, in the wake of this sit-down with Tesla’s founder, The EU sent a letter in the wake of the riots in Southport that have rocked the United Kingdom. Yet, this is election interference—it's also incredibly insulting to Europeans, as Twitter’s CEO explained.

“This is an unprecedented attempt to stretch a law intended to apply in Europe to political activities in the US. It also patronizes European citizens, suggesting they are incapable of listening to a conversation and drawing their own conclusions,” wrote Linda Yaccarino.

And it was brought up at the White House briefing today by The Washington Post’s Cleve Wootson, who wondered if the president or this administration had any plans or comment about the alleged “misinformation” we could hear later tonight:



 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
🔥🔥 Surprisingly yesterday, Politico ran what at first looked like a rare pro-Musk story, sort of, headlined, “EU takes shot at Musk over Trump interview — and misses.” The sub-headline added, “Europe’s chief digital official faces fire for ‘interfering’ in U.S. election.”

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In the hours before Elon interviewed President Trump on Monday night’s live stream, birdlike European Union bureaucrat Thierry Breton* (* as if that’s his real name) fired off a snooty, grandiloquent, multi-syllabic letter warning Elon Musk in paternalistic legalese that, and I quote,:

…all proportionate and effective mitigation measures must be put in place regarding the amplification of harmful content in connection with relevant events, including live streaming, which, if unaddressed, might increase the risk profile of X and generate detrimental effects on civic discourse and public security. This is important against the background of recent examples of public unrest brought about by the amplification of content that promotes hatred, disorder, incitement to violence, or certain instances of disinformation.


Thierry warmed to his theme, squawking more shrilly, verbosely urging Mr. Musk to remember that, if he didn’t pull the plug on President Trump, the EU could, if it wants, stomp its fascistic boot on X and crush the platform flatter than a love bug on a SWAT Truck bumper:


As you know, formal proceedings are already ongoing against X under the Digital Services Act in areas linked to the dissemination of disinformation. Any negative effect of illegal content on X in the EU, attributed to the ineffectiveness of how X applies the relevant provisions of the DSA, may be relevant in the context of the ongoing proceedings and of the overall assessment of X's compliance with EU law. This has already been done in the recent past, in relation to the repercussions and amplification of terrorist content or content that incites violence, hate and racism in the EU, such as in the context of the recent riots in the United Kingdom.

I therefore urge you to promptly ensure the effectiveness of your systems and to report measures taken to my team.


I’ll translate the European dialect for you: Thierry wanted Musk to give his “team” a time-delayed off-switch, letting them shut Trump down in Europe the instant the President said something they didn’t like. Otherwise, things would go badly for X in the EU’s ongoing disinformation “investigation.”


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Grandma Thierry probably knits with Grandma Garland.


Even more plainly: That’s a nice social media platform you have there, it would be a shame if anything happened to it.

Thierry, who is French, published his letter on Twitter/X (of course), so after due consideration and careful consultation with X’s lawyers, Elon Musk also responded on X, politely, in measured tones, but much more succinctly, with a meme:


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Politico’s article linked —but didn’t show— Musk’s tart meme. The story was not meant to praise Musk. It quickly became obvious it was meant to run damage control for the EU. Frenchman Thierry appears now to be retreating into the arms of his cowardly Commission comrades, who were all too chicken to go on record:


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The Europeans are hilarious. It never stops with those people. Talk about two-faced! European constitutions and charters are packed with virtue-signaling language about the fundamental value of free speech. For example, in 1948 the United Nations adopted its Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which provides in Article 19 that:


"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."


Seems pretty clear. “Any media.” “Without interference.”

The Europeans adopted that rock-solid definition of free speech into their 1950 European Convention on Human Rights and have been chipping away at it ever since.

Many have complained about the deplorable erosion of free speech rights in Europe under the authoritarian banners of “hate speech” and “disinformation.” But who decides what is hateful or disinforming? Theirry Breton? What qualifies someone as an “expert” in such matters? Is there a test? Why should self-interested people be allowed anywhere near the levers of such untrammeled power? What recourse do citizens have when those powers are abused, especially given the legal immunity government agents enjoy? How can such nebulous standards possibly be consistent with the noble-minded free speech ideals scribbled into the various European charters, conventions, and constitutions?

Across the pond in the United States, the Constitutional standard for legally violating citizens’ fundamental speech rights when absolutely necessary is a standard called “strict scrutiny,” a standard that nebulous labels like “hate speech” and “disinformation” could not possibly meet. Challenged laws almost never survive strict scrutiny.

But the EU uses a “flexible” proportionality standard when evaluating restrictions on laws infringing fundamental rights. All I can say is, Thank God for the Constitution.

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once wrote, “The remedy to be applied (to bad speech) is more speech, not enforced silence.” What happened this week is Elon Musk gave the Europeans a little more speech.

And look at that! It worked. Justice Brandeis would be proud. The election-interfering Frenchman is in full retreat.







European Union told Elon Musk
European Union bureaucrat Thierry Breton
 
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GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
🔥🔥 Surprisingly yesterday, Politico ran what at first looked like a rare pro-Musk story, sort of, headlined, “EU takes shot at Musk over Trump interview — and misses.” The sub-headline added, “Europe’s chief digital official faces fire for ‘interfering’ in U.S. election.”








European Union told Elon Musk
European Union bureaucrat Thierry Breton
 
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Kyle

Beloved Misanthrope
PREMO Member
He's showing his Fascist nature for all to see.


It's time to start labeling EVERYTHING they post as hate-speech and going after them.


Fight fire with fire.
 

PrchJrkr

Long Haired Country Boy
Ad Free Experience
Patron
Can you believe this asshat? And to think he could be representing VA in Congress next year.
Vindman is a prick and a disgrace. Just the type of person that we don't need in elective office. I hope he gets crushed on election day and he eventually diaf.
 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
🔥
🔥
Politico ran a story yesterday headlined, “France extends detention of Telegram chief Pavel Durov.” Over the weekend, Telegram founder Pavel Durov was nabbed by French police when his private jet landed there to grab a quick espresso. Yet to be charged, media articles all suggest Pavel’s detention is related to Telegram’s failure to cooperate in stopping ‘criminal activity’ on the social media platform.


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SHOW: Tucker Carlson interviews criminal mastermind Pavel Durov (58:28).

CLIP: Pavel Durov tells Tucker about deep state efforts to bribe Telegram engineers (2:52).

Telegram advertises itself as a protected free speech platform with over 900 million users. It was created and is owned by Pavel Durov. Pavel was born in Russia, but fled to Dubai in 2014 after Russian efforts to control his first social media platform, described as a Russian ‘Facebook.’ I’d name it but I can’t do the dialect. Rhazhivashi-something.

Anyway, most people view Pavel’s detention (not arrest) as a kind of hostage scenario. If Telegram plays ball, Pavel’s problems will magically disappear! All the platform need do is build a few government backdoors into the Telegram system, for safety, not for monitoring and censoring citizens, no, never.

It’s unusual for a corporation’s CEO to be arrested for crimes committed by others. Media calls it “unprecedented.” We can compare Pavel’s predicament with Mark Zuckerberg’s. Zuckerberg learned how to play ball in 2020, generously donated to Democrats, and, despite originally warning employees not to take the jabs, hired a battalion of security-state drones and built the government its own misinformation portal page during the pandemic.

Zuckerberg has never been detained, not even for the child pornography rings running rampant on Facebook. Nor detained for anything else, since he’s a good little deep-state doggie.

Other corporate bigwigs evade prosecution even for crimes they commit themselves. Take the pharmaceutical industry, for example, whose executives escape detention even after pleading guilty to literally killing people through fraud, like opioid maker Purdue Pharma, which just paid a fine (using money collected from customers) to the government.

Maybe Telegram should hire pharma lawyers. In any event, the French can only legally hold Pavel for 96 hours without charging him. So we’ll see the government’s next move soon.

In 1440, Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, which was pretty much a ponderous, inky mess for a while. Still, governments spent centuries trying to rein it back in. For example, in 1662, Great Britain passed “An Act for preventing the frequent Abuses in printing seditious treasonable and unlicensed Books and Pamphlets and for regulating of Printing and Printing Presses.”

The 1662 Act, which required citizens to purchase licenses to legally own and operate printing presses, was repeatedly extended and wasn’t repealed until 1863, even though it was initially supposed to be in effect for only two years.

The British government justified the 1662 Act by citing the circulation of disinformation that caused public panic and unrest (although they hadn’t yet invented that Orwellian term ‘disinformation’). You could quibble with comparing Telegram to the printing press, but you get the idea.

Was Pavel’s detention a genuine effort to protect the public, or a repeat of historical patterns where governments wield the power of arrest to shut down the free flow of information?

Let me know what you think in the comments.




 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
Vindman is a prick and a disgrace. Just the type of person that we don't need in elective office. I hope he gets crushed on election day and he eventually diaf.



Democrat Makes Veiled Arrest Threat Of Elon Musk After Arrest Of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov​



 
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