- Feb 5, 2002
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The EU is using the Israel-Hamas conflict as a fig leaf for extending its control of the internet—but online censorship will not solve the problem of Islamism.
After last week’s brutal attack on Israel by Hamas, and as terrorist violence rocks Europe, the EU is taking the opportunity to seize further control of speech on the internet.
The censorship crusade is led by the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, the EU’s self-declared ‘digital enforcer.’ On October 18th, Breton delivered a plenary address to the European Parliament on “fighting disinformation” in “times of conflict,” calling for stricter enforcement of the Digital Services Act (DSA), its new online-regulation law. The DSA, which came into force in August, obliges large online platforms like X (Twitter), Meta, and YouTube to swiftly take down illegal content, hate speech, and so-called disinformation.
In the wake of the Israel-Hamas conflict, Breton has launched a series of probes, first into X and now Meta and TikTok, requesting detailed information about the social-media firms’ response to the attack. If they are found to be DSA non compliant, they face fines of up to 6% of annual global revenue. Essentially, the firms must demonstrate they are following the EU’s rules, or else.
For X in particular, it seems that the recent violence has been folded into a long-standing EU grudge against CEO Elon Musk and his free-speech approach to content moderation. X is the only large platform that has pulled out of the EU’s voluntary Code of Practice on Disinformation, which it did back in May—although, under the DSA, X is now expected to meet the code’s requirements anyway. In a speech last month, EU vice president for values and transparency, Věra Jourová singled out X for allegedly having an especially high level of disinformation compared to other sites, pledging further efforts to fight it. Following the Commission investigation, Musk is reportedly now considering taking X out of the EU.
Continued below.
europeanconservative.com
After last week’s brutal attack on Israel by Hamas, and as terrorist violence rocks Europe, the EU is taking the opportunity to seize further control of speech on the internet.
The censorship crusade is led by the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, the EU’s self-declared ‘digital enforcer.’ On October 18th, Breton delivered a plenary address to the European Parliament on “fighting disinformation” in “times of conflict,” calling for stricter enforcement of the Digital Services Act (DSA), its new online-regulation law. The DSA, which came into force in August, obliges large online platforms like X (Twitter), Meta, and YouTube to swiftly take down illegal content, hate speech, and so-called disinformation.
In the wake of the Israel-Hamas conflict, Breton has launched a series of probes, first into X and now Meta and TikTok, requesting detailed information about the social-media firms’ response to the attack. If they are found to be DSA non compliant, they face fines of up to 6% of annual global revenue. Essentially, the firms must demonstrate they are following the EU’s rules, or else.
For X in particular, it seems that the recent violence has been folded into a long-standing EU grudge against CEO Elon Musk and his free-speech approach to content moderation. X is the only large platform that has pulled out of the EU’s voluntary Code of Practice on Disinformation, which it did back in May—although, under the DSA, X is now expected to meet the code’s requirements anyway. In a speech last month, EU vice president for values and transparency, Věra Jourová singled out X for allegedly having an especially high level of disinformation compared to other sites, pledging further efforts to fight it. Following the Commission investigation, Musk is reportedly now considering taking X out of the EU.
Continued below.
The EU’s Disinformation War
The EU is using the Israel-Hamas conflict as a fig leaf for extending its control of the internet—but online censorship will not solve the problem of Islamism.
europeanconservative.com
