Breton’s letter to Musk is an assault on free speech

Are the global speech police coming for Americans, and what are our purported leaders prepared to do about it? Troubling warning signs have been on the horizon for years that anti free speech jurisdictions would use coercive means to impose their orthodoxy on social media platforms to, in turn, impose their orthodoxy on the citizens who use those platforms in a backdoor way, thereby imposing those first amendment, eviscerating standards on we, the American people, attacking us based platforms, threatening their business models through not just maligning their executives, but controlling their content moderation standards under the threat of massive legal andor financial pain, for example, via regulatory regimes punitively aimed at combating missed DIS and Mal information andor hate speech is one way in which this effort has manifested itself lately and perhaps not coincidentally, in a hugely significant election year in America and in many countries throughout the world, this effort now fusing digital speech police and literal speech police seems to be intensifying. It’s a sign that globally, and particularly in the West, which is supposed to be a bulwark for free speech, leaders are less interested than ever in protecting that right and more interested than ever in controlling their populations by quashing dissenting views that might threaten their power. One recent example comes out of the EU where Commissioner Thierry Breton warned on the eve of ex owner Elon Musk’s free, willing conversation with former President Donald Trump, that Musk better be careful about what was said during the space or else, of course, he did so in bureaucrat ease, in the anodyne, soft, tyrannical way that the administrative state addresses its would be prey as the individual entity ultimately controlling a platform with 300 million users worldwide, of which 1/3 in the EU that has been designated as a very large online platform, Breton warned you have the legal obligations to ensure excess compliance with EU law, and in particular the DSA Digital Services Act in the EU Bertolt instructed Musk that he need take quote all proportionate and effective mitigation measures regarding the amplification of harmful content in connection with relevant events, including live streaming, which might increase the risk profile of X and generate detrimental effects on civic discourse and public security. Berton added that Musk was obligated to tell the EU what his plans were to meet its regulatory standards, to be responsive to claims of quote, unquote, illegal content, while adding the not so subtle jab that formal proceedings are already ongoing against x under the DSA, and that the musk Trump space could only further imperil the platform. Bertone’s brow beating of musk and x followed what he called recent examples of public unrest brought about by the amplification of content that promotes hatred, disorder, incitement to violence, or certain instances of disinformation. This was a seeming illusion in part to anti immigration fervor that has been bubbling up among nationalists and populists across Europe in the wake of mass Islamic immigration and the impacts on European societies, and which recently exploded. In the UK, there a 17 year old stabbed and murdered three young girls at a Taylor Swift themed event for children in the UK. It was rumored that this was a Muslim immigrant from the Middle East, though it turned out the killer was born to Rwandan parents. The rumor spread among the populace, unfortunately, leading to protests, riots and violence against the UK as Muslim immigrant population. In the wake of those riots, London’s metropolitan police commissioner came out with his own threat. It wasn’t against the violence, it was against the ideas behind it. We will throw the full force of the law at people, and whether you’re in this country committing crimes on the streets or committing crimes from further afield online, we will come after you. He told Sky News after insinuating Elon Musk was helping whip up hatred. When asked by a reporter about related speech coming from other countries, he replied, being a keyboard warrior does not make you safe from the law, adding, if people are provoking hatred and violence on the streets, we will come after those individuals, just as we will physically confront on the streets the thugs who are causing the problems for communities. In remarks read as threatening the extradition of foreign citizens, including Americans, for engaging in thought crimes. While the EU officially distanced itself from Breton’s remarks, it did not condemn them. Musk, for his part, told Breton to pound sand. The British government did not so respond to the Metropolitan Commissioner’s threats. They remain American lawmakers were almost uniformly silent, with the exception of Republican senators like Mike Lee and the Republican leaders of the House Judiciary Committee. This is an outrage where President Biden and vice president Harris, where’s the State Department? This is a question that ought to be on the ballot in 2024 will you defend Americans from being extradited? Protected speech. Will you defend American platforms that facilitate free and open discourse from foreign attacks, and indeed, as reflected in the musk Trump threats from election interference, our freedom of speech and thus, all our other freedoms will die if no one will stand for them. You.