Musk just told Brazil to stuff it. Will he do the same with the EU? From Michael Rectenwald at mises.org:
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):
But the Digital Services Act threatens to universalize content moderation by social media and search engines, subjecting them to the EU’s stringent and anti-free-speech laws against “disinformation” and “hate speech,” which are not (yet) recognized legal categories in the United States. Given that Twitter [now X] will be forced to abide by EU-enforced content moderation for its EU users, it is possible that it will simply apply the Digital Services Act’s rules to all content…
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:
As the individual entity ultimately controlling a platform with over 300 million users worldwide, of which one third in the EU (sic), that has been designated as a Very Large Online Platform, you have the legal obligation to ensure X’s compliance with EU law and in particular the DSA in the EU. (emphasis mine)
Anyone of the same view with Elon Musk should stand up and support him.