Another day, another establishment European politician working to restrict freedoms in order to protect … democracy!
German Education Minister Karin Prien (CDU) this week told a young audience at Berlin’s re:publica digital trade fair that we mustn’t “kid ourselves,”
We can’t avoid regulation if we want to save our liberal, democratic system.
Prien wasn’t satisfied with the already restrictive EU Digital Services Act, and didn’t seem concerned by the threat of U.S. travel bans for officials who hamper the rights of Americans. Instead, she spoke about the ‘need’ for stricter regulation of social media sites, limiting freedom of expression on these platforms. She explained that individuals must be stopped from spreading non-defined “crude theories and extremist positions, especially to young people.”
„Machen wir uns nichts vor. Um Regulierung kommen wir nicht drumherum, wenn wir unser liberales, demokratisches System retten wollen“, meint Familienministerin Karin Prien. FDP-Urgestein Wolfang Kubik sieht darin die „Instrumente von Autokraten“. https://t.co/BjBw6aaHHcpic.twitter.com/rmlm1J5hq7
Inadvertently pointing to a common theme with Europe’s elites, the minister noted that “extremists have a huge interest in polarising in order to destroy liberal democracy.”
Prien’s comments have been strongly rebutted by liberal Freie Demokratische Partei (FDP) Vice President Wolfgang Kubicki, who warned that “anyone who first thinks of autocratic tools to save liberal democracy has already lost their way on the path to saving democracy.”
Enforcing the law on social media is important. Anyone who believes that the state can control public debate because positions are “crude” has neither understood the essence of freedom of expression nor the role of democratic politicians in the battle of opinions.
Bundesfamilienministerin Prien sagte auf der re:publica über soziale Medien:
„Machen wir uns nichts vor. Um Regulierung kommen wir nicht drumherum, wenn wir unser liberales, demokratisches System retten wollen.“
Wem zur Rettung der liberalen Demokratie zuerst die Instrumente…
“Unfortunately,” Kubicki added, such illiberal views are not exclusive to Prien but are in fact “widespread … in German politics”—and, we at europeanconservative.com would add, across the whole Continent.
AfD official Guntram Proß also joked that it is, in fact, easy to “save our liberal, democratic system”—simply stop voting for the establishment parties and their “totalitarian agenda” will be forced to end.
Michael Curzon is a news writer for europeanconservative.com based in England’s Midlands. He is also Editor of Bournbrook Magazine, which he founded in 2019, and previously wrote for London’s Express Online. His Twitter handle is @MichaelCurzon_.
