European Parliament from EU - Hearing of Commissioner-designate Thierry Breton
CV NEWS FEED // On Monday, the day before X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk’s highly anticipated discussion with former President Donald Trump, an official from the European Union (EU) sent Musk a letter urging him to censor “potentially harmful content” and “disinformation.”
The European Commission is the EU’s 27-member executive governing body. Thierry Breton, a French businessman, is the Commissioner for Internal Market, a position mainly concerned with economic policy.
Breton wrote that due to Musk overseeing a “Very Large Online Platform,” he has “the legal obligation” to comply with the Digital Services Act (DSA), a pro-censorship EU regulation which passed in 2022.
“This notably means ensuring … that all proportionate and effective mitigation measures are put in place regarding the amplification of harmful content in connection with relevant events, including live streaming,” the EU Commissioner continued.
“This is important against the backdrop of recent examples of publix unrest brought about by the amplification of content that promotes hatred, disorder, incitement to violence, or certain instances of disinformation,” he added.
“In this respect, I note that the DSA obligations apply without exceptions or discrimination to the moderation of the whole under community and content of X (including yourself as a user with over 190 million followers),” Breton wrote in his letter to Musk.
>> TRUMP SITS DOWN WITH MUSK <<
“I therefore urge you to promptly ensure the effectiveness of your systems and to report measures taken to my team,” the official concluded.
Musk responded to Breton’s letter with a profane meme referencing Ben Stiller’s 2008 comedy film “Tropic Thunder.”
Breton’s letter was widely panned, with a chorus of observers asserting that his demands ran counter to the freedom of speech
Multiple replies to Breton’s post of his letter on X received significantly more “likes” than the letter itself – a phenomenon known in online culture as a “ratio.”
Popular X account Libs of TikTok stated that the letter amounted to “Election interference from a foreign country” – as it was sent in anticipation of Musk’s live-streamed discussion with the Republican presidential nominee.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former member of the Dutch Parliament, wrote: “People ask me: who is subverting our democracies? Well, here is Mr. Breton, in his own words.”
A refugee from Somalia, Ali is a well-known critic of authoritarian and extremist political ideologies.
One X user posted an excerpt of a 1962 speech by then-U.S. President John F. Kennedy in which he pointed to a United Nations resolution declaring that “freedom of information is a fundamental human right.”
However, European officials were not alone in accusing Musk of so-called “disinformation” hours before the billionaire spoke with Trump. Commentators with left-wing American media outlets made similar accusations.
During a Monday MSNBC appearance, British-born Imran Ahmed stated: “We examined [X] posts about the U.S. elections that [Musk] posted between January 1 and July 31, identifying 50 posts that independent fact checkers found to be false.”
“Those 50 posts had accrued 1.2 billion views,” Ahmed stated. He specifically singled out posts that Musk made calling attention to mass immigration and voter fraud. Musk is himself an immigrant.
Ahmed told MSNBC that it is “clear [Musk] is abusing his privileged position to sow disinformation that generates discord and distrust in the electoral process.”
Ahmed is the founder and CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a left-wing organization that advocates for “exposing” online discussion it considers to be “hate speech” and “misinformation.”
