Leftist and liberal MEPs are calling for a debate in the European Parliament (EP) about social media platform X’s “threat to democracy” and “interference” in European politics.
The owner of X, South African-born U.S.billionaire Elon Musk, is preparing to livestream a conversation with German right-wing leader Alice Weidel on his social media platform at 7 p.m. on Thursday, January 9th.
Since acquiring Twitter in 2022, and rebranding it X, Musk has transformed it into a place for free speech, refusing to censor anyone, and letting the users themselves add context to posts they deem contains disinformation.
This worries politicians in Brussels’ liberal ‘bubble,’ who would rather censor conservative views, and suspend the accounts of those who convey such messages.
In a much-needed boost for the co-leader of Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), Alice Weidel’s appearance on the social media giant will draw a wide audience for her views and policies.
The AfD, currently polling at around 20% in the build-up to German national elections on February 23rd,is unfairly disadvantaged on the political scene’s uneven playing field. Labelled “extremist” by the intelligence services, isolated by the political establishment, and vilified by the mainstream media for holding views on issues such as migration, the climate, and Ukraine, that don’t fit in with ‘liberal’ norms: all this has failed to break its electoral base.
The leftist and centrist parties of the EP, just like the European Commission, are threatening X with legal action—on the pretext that it does not comply with European Union rules.
As we recently reported, the Commission said on Monday it would “analyse” whether the live conversation on Thursday is in breach of the EU’s rules for digital platforms—meaning it will assess whether Musk will unfairly boost the video on X using algorithms, thus giving an unfair campaign advantage to AfD.
The second-largest group in the EP, the socialists, are demanding a debate on the issue at the next plenary session in Strasbourg in two weeks’ time.
“New dangers threaten our democracies. Dangers as powerful or more than weapons: fake news, hate speech and the abuse of social networks,” group leader Iratxe García Pérez tweeted.
Valérie Hayer, the liberal Renew group’s president, said that Europe cannot be blind about Musk’s determination to “interfere in the EU’s democratic affairs.”
German MEPs from the centrist European People’s Party (EPP) are also wary of political rival Alice Weidel appearing on X, and said they would continue to push the European Commission to bring the procedure against X to an end.
Brussels launched an investigation against X in 2023—the first against a major online platform—establishing that the platform breached elements of the Digital Services Act (DSA), the EU’s social media censorship tool.
In July of last year, Musk said that the Commission had offered X an illegal secret deal, proposing to the platform that if it “quietly censored speech without telling anyone,” they would not be fined. Musk claimed that while other platforms accepted the deal, X did not.
In a letter to MEPs, newly appointed tech commissioner Henna Virkkunen pledged to “energetically advance” the Commission’s probe into X.
Witnessing the hysteria surrounding Musk and his vow to uphold free speech on his platform, it would be no surprise if the EU institutions concluded that X is breaching EU laws. In that case, X would receive a hefty fine, but probably the long-term plan of the Brussels liberal elites is to silence it forever, or banish it from Europe altogether.
