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Authored by Michael Rectenwald via The Mises Institute,

As I argued in October of 2022, Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter (now X) would represent an important test case for the freedom of speech on social media against the globalist, woke, and totalitarian agenda for the censorship of “hate speech,” “misinformation,” and “disinformation.” In that essay, I also predicted that one of the main obstacles for free speech on X would be the Digital Services Act (DSA) of the European Union (EU), as administered by the European Commission (EC):

Sure enough, Musk’s X has been threatened with fines of up to 6% of global revenue by the EC’s Thierry Breton for failure to comply with the EC’s DSA. And now Breton is attempting to bring down the hammer on X for its failure to comply with DSA imperatives, especially in connection with a prospective interview of Trump and revolts underway in the UK over immigration and immigrant violence.

In an X post on August 12, 2024, Breton publicized a letter he sent to Musk and X’s CEO, Linda Yaccarino, the weakest link in X’s free-speech chain. The letter lays out the extent to which the EC aims to go and the powers that it arrogates to itself to curtail free speech:

In prose rife with the kind of doublespeak and gaslighting that we should expect from the globalists in the EC, the United Nations (UN), and the World Economic Forum (WEF), Breton continues:

On the one hand, the EC’s Breton is ordering X to ensure “freedom of expression and of information, including media freedom and pluralism,” and on the other, the platform must mitigate (censor) “the amplification of harmful content in connection with relevant events.”

Of course, the EC will decide what constitutes “harmful content,” and the harmfulness of said content will be determined based on the EU’s dicta as to what harms its own (globalist) agenda. Never mind whether the content may advocate the reduction or elimination of harm to those subjects it deems to have no right to freedom of expression, like the native Britons revolting against the UK’s immigration policies, aligned as the latter policies are with the EU’s own immigration policies. The EC will decide what speech it condones, what freedom of expression is allowed, and what expression will be disallowed. The EC will decide what are the “relevant events,” “public unrest,” and thus what speech is permissible and what is not.

Redoubling its claims to authority over speech on X, Breton reminded Musk of ongoing proceedings against the platform:

This warning is given in connection of ongoing speech of which Breton and the EC/EU does not sanction, including speech exhibiting “hate and racism” and “debates and interviews in the context of elections,” the treatment of which could have, Breton warns, an impact on proceedings already underway against X:

Thus, the supposed “richest man in the world” is to report on his censorship mitigation efforts regarding permissible free expression to the Breton’s EU “team.”

Musk’s X is likewise vulnerable to punishment by this supra-statist regime.

The arrogance of the supra-statist, globalist, and woke regime apparently knows no bounds. As if in the U.S., national efforts to curtail and control speech were not already draconian enough, the EC/EU is upping the ante on censorship. These efforts will have dramatic effects on the future of free speech, including speech regarding pandemics, the integrity of elections, “antisemitism,” the institution of freedom-crushing “climate change” mitigation efforts, civil unrest in response to all the above, and more.