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.
Breton’s latest skirmish with Musk is part of the EU’s wider disinformation war, which it is steadily ramping up ahead of the European Parliament elections next year. For example, EU officials linked the election in Slovakia earlier this month with potential deepfakes and Russian disinformation, even before it took place. Similarly, ahead of Poland’s election, Wired magazine reported that the country was “particularly at risk of being targeted by disinformation,” citing a recent EU study. Breton told the plenary he was “not entirely satisfied” with platforms’ anti-disinformation policies during the Slovakian election, which was won by Eurosceptic populist, Robert Fico.
Though Breton offered no specifics, other European elites give us a pretty clear idea about what ‘disinformation’ means to them. Last week on Euractiv, Barbora Bukovská, a senior director at human-rights NGO, Article 19, claimed that platforms had failed to moderate “problematic” content posted by Fico regarding migration during the Slovakian election, and called for stronger regulation. While Article 19 claims to “to protect and promote freedom of expression” (named after the human right to the same), this apparently does not extend to what Bukovská calls “xenophobic language” used to describe the approximately 24,500 illegal migrants who have entered Slovakia this year.
In fact, the idea that rhetoric opposing migration constitutes disinformation is commonplace in Eurocrat circles. A prime example is the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO), an EU-funded fact-checking hub which produces reports on online discourse across the bloc. As I reported back in August, the EDMO’s disinformation briefing for Ireland labels “nativist narratives” opposing migration, like the hashtag “Ireland is full,” as potentially “harmful” disinformation. Another EDMO briefing for Belgium takes a similar view, as does an extensive 2021 European Commission report.
Even more revealing is EDMO’s latest EU-wide “fact-checking brief” for September—the same month in which an estimated 10,000 illegal migrants landed on the Italian island of Lampedusa over the course of just three days. The September briefing warned of false news stories that “portray immigrants and refugees as violent and dangerous to European values” in the wake of the landings at Lampedusa, forming part of “a well-known xenophobic false narrative about immigration.” In other words, while citizens across Europe watching the extraordinary scenes in Lampedusa worry about this illegal influx of foreign young men, the EDMO is concerned with the “xenophobic narratives” that may be used to describe them. What’s more, this is no mere arm’s-length body: the EDMO works with the European Commission to draft and implement the DSA disinformation Code of Practice.
European elites’ embrace of this view is particularly hard to swallow given that the appalling terror attacks committed in the past week were carried out by men who had no right to be in Europe. As the European Conservative has reported, the Tunisian terrorist who murdered two Swedish football fans in Brussels on Monday night was an illegal migrant who had been flagged as a radical Islamist seven years ago(he had arrived in Lampedusa in 2011). The Arras killer, Chechen Islamist Mohammed Mogushkov, had arrived in Europe irregularly and had been due to be deported on multiple occasions. Mogushkov was known to have been radicalised, and had been monitored by French security services the day before he stabbed and murdered school teacher, Dominique Bernard. These tragic deaths represent not only the gross failures of Europe’s migration policy and its failure to protect its citizens. They also show that the claim that unvetted migrants are dangerous to Europe is very far from a false narrative.
Breton raised both terror attacks in his speech, calling them “a sombre reminder that the threat is real and present on our soil.” He then concluded that “the growing threat of terrorism and disinformation calls for a rapid, decisive and coordinated response,” that is, in terms of digital regulation. Eliding “terrorism” and “disinformation” in this way is an incredibly cynical ploy. He is using the fear and anguish caused by these attacks, alongside the atrocities in Israel, as a fig leaf for extending the EU’s control of the internet. But more online censorship will not solve the underlying problem of violent Islamist fanatics living in our midst. Gallingly, though, what it will do is empower the EU to censor those who would raise the alarm about this grave threat.
This gross inversion of reality reveals an EU hopelessly incapable of solving its problems. The EU is unable or unwilling to stop the flood of illegal migration. It is unable or unwilling to integrate the vast numbers who have already come, or to remove those who have no right to remain. Instead, the best it can offer is further restrictions of its own citizens’ speech online. Europeans deserve better.
The EU’s Disinformation War
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.
Breton’s latest skirmish with Musk is part of the EU’s wider disinformation war, which it is steadily ramping up ahead of the European Parliament elections next year. For example, EU officials linked the election in Slovakia earlier this month with potential deepfakes and Russian disinformation, even before it took place. Similarly, ahead of Poland’s election, Wired magazine reported that the country was “particularly at risk of being targeted by disinformation,” citing a recent EU study. Breton told the plenary he was “not entirely satisfied” with platforms’ anti-disinformation policies during the Slovakian election, which was won by Eurosceptic populist, Robert Fico.
Though Breton offered no specifics, other European elites give us a pretty clear idea about what ‘disinformation’ means to them. Last week on Euractiv, Barbora Bukovská, a senior director at human-rights NGO, Article 19, claimed that platforms had failed to moderate “problematic” content posted by Fico regarding migration during the Slovakian election, and called for stronger regulation. While Article 19 claims to “to protect and promote freedom of expression” (named after the human right to the same), this apparently does not extend to what Bukovská calls “xenophobic language” used to describe the approximately 24,500 illegal migrants who have entered Slovakia this year.
In fact, the idea that rhetoric opposing migration constitutes disinformation is commonplace in Eurocrat circles. A prime example is the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO), an EU-funded fact-checking hub which produces reports on online discourse across the bloc. As I reported back in August, the EDMO’s disinformation briefing for Ireland labels “nativist narratives” opposing migration, like the hashtag “Ireland is full,” as potentially “harmful” disinformation. Another EDMO briefing for Belgium takes a similar view, as does an extensive 2021 European Commission report.
Even more revealing is EDMO’s latest EU-wide “fact-checking brief” for September—the same month in which an estimated 10,000 illegal migrants landed on the Italian island of Lampedusa over the course of just three days. The September briefing warned of false news stories that “portray immigrants and refugees as violent and dangerous to European values” in the wake of the landings at Lampedusa, forming part of “a well-known xenophobic false narrative about immigration.” In other words, while citizens across Europe watching the extraordinary scenes in Lampedusa worry about this illegal influx of foreign young men, the EDMO is concerned with the “xenophobic narratives” that may be used to describe them. What’s more, this is no mere arm’s-length body: the EDMO works with the European Commission to draft and implement the DSA disinformation Code of Practice.
European elites’ embrace of this view is particularly hard to swallow given that the appalling terror attacks committed in the past week were carried out by men who had no right to be in Europe. As the European Conservative has reported, the Tunisian terrorist who murdered two Swedish football fans in Brussels on Monday night was an illegal migrant who had been flagged as a radical Islamist seven years ago(he had arrived in Lampedusa in 2011). The Arras killer, Chechen Islamist Mohammed Mogushkov, had arrived in Europe irregularly and had been due to be deported on multiple occasions. Mogushkov was known to have been radicalised, and had been monitored by French security services the day before he stabbed and murdered school teacher, Dominique Bernard. These tragic deaths represent not only the gross failures of Europe’s migration policy and its failure to protect its citizens. They also show that the claim that unvetted migrants are dangerous to Europe is very far from a false narrative.
Breton raised both terror attacks in his speech, calling them “a sombre reminder that the threat is real and present on our soil.” He then concluded that “the growing threat of terrorism and disinformation calls for a rapid, decisive and coordinated response,” that is, in terms of digital regulation. Eliding “terrorism” and “disinformation” in this way is an incredibly cynical ploy. He is using the fear and anguish caused by these attacks, alongside the atrocities in Israel, as a fig leaf for extending the EU’s control of the internet. But more online censorship will not solve the underlying problem of violent Islamist fanatics living in our midst. Gallingly, though, what it will do is empower the EU to censor those who would raise the alarm about this grave threat.
This gross inversion of reality reveals an EU hopelessly incapable of solving its problems. The EU is unable or unwilling to stop the flood of illegal migration. It is unable or unwilling to integrate the vast numbers who have already come, or to remove those who have no right to remain. Instead, the best it can offer is further restrictions of its own citizens’ speech online. Europeans deserve better.
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