EU Warns Twitter Not to Restore Free Speech Protections After Calls from Clinton and Other Democratic Leaders
By: JONATHAN TURLEY
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
We have been discussing how Democratic leaders like Hillary Clinton called on foreign companies to pass censorship laws to prevent Elon Musk from restoring free speech protections on Twitter. The EU has responded aggressively to warn Musk not to allow greater free speech or face crippling fines and even potential criminal enforcement. After years of using censorship-by-surrogates in social media companies, Democratic leaders seem to have rediscovered good old-fashioned state censorship.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) declared Musk's pledge to restore free speech values on social media as threatening Democracy itself. She has promised that "there are going to be rules" to block such changes. She is not alone. Former President Obama has declared "regulation has to be part of the answer" to disinformation.
For her part, Hillary Clinton is looking to Europe to fill the vacuum and called upon her European counterparts to pass a massive censorship law to "bolster global democracy before it's too late."
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern recently repeated this call for global censorship at the United Nations to the applause of diplomats and media alike.
EU censors have assured Democratic leaders that they will not allow free speech to break out on Twitter regardless of the wishes of its owner and customers.
One of the most anti-free speech figures in the West, EU's Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton has been raising the alarm that Twitter users might be able to read uncensored material or hear unauthorized views.
Breton himself threatened that Twitter must "fly by [the European Union's] rules" in censoring views deemed misleading or harmful by EU bureaucrats. Breton has been moving publicly to warn Musk not to try to reintroduce protections that go beyond the tolerance of the EU for free speech. Musk is planning to meet with the EU censors and has conceded that he may not be able resist such mandatory censorship rules.
The hope of leaders like Clinton is the anti-free speech measure recently passed by EU countries, the Digital Services Act. The DSA contains mandatory "disinformation" rules for censoring "harmful" thoughts or views.
Breton has made no secret that he views free speech as a danger coming from the United States that needs to be walled off from the Internet. He previously declared that, with the DSA, the EU is now able to prevent the Internet from again becoming a place for largely unregulated free speech, which he referred to as the "Wild West" period of the Internet.
It is a telling reference because the EU views free speech itself as an existential danger. They reject the notion of free speech as its own protection where good speech can overcome bad speech. That is viewed as the "Wild West."
Many of us are far more fearful of global censors than some whack job spewing hateful thoughts from his basement. That is why I have described myself as an Internet Originalist:
The alternative is "internet originalism" — no censorship. If social media companies returned to their original roles, there would be no slippery slope of political bias or opportunism; they would assume the same status as telephone companies. We do not need companies to protect us from harmful or "misleading" thoughts. The solution to bad speech is more speech, not approved speech.
If Pelosi demanded that Verizon or Sprint interrupt calls to stop people saying false or misleading things, the public would be outraged. Twitter serves the same communicative function between consenting parties; it simply allows thousands of people to participate in such digital exchanges. Those people do not sign up to exchange thoughts only to have Dorsey or some other internet overlords monitor their conversations and "protect" them from errant or harmful thoughts.
The danger of the rising levels of censorship is far greater than the dangers of such absurd claims of the law or science — or in this case both. What we can do is to maximize the free discourse and expression on the Internet to allow free speech itself to be the ultimate disinfectant of disinformation.
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Jonathan Turley meets with Trump to discuss political strategy.
How do people like Jonathan (Tom Hagen) Turley suggest we combat serial , constant , disinformation in conservative media?
Answer : They don't.
How does the left suggest we combat serial, constant, disinformation in the leftist main stream media; and alt left media? (Like the whole Russian collusion hoax; Hunter Biden's laptop being a Russian plant; and generally anything dropping out of any MSNBC or CNN reporters' mouths)
That is right they expect to be able to spew their garbage freely across all social media spectrums and have it accepted as gospel.
Jonathan Turley, in this article, suggests there should be NO restrictions on what can be said on social media.
If that becomes the case do you think the political atmosphere in America, and in Europe, will get better or worse?
Much better!
Should
"I hate niggers and wish they were all dead"
be allowed on twitter? yes or no?
you go in for a penny you go in for a pound, as the old saying goes.
we would see a million, then 5 million saying
Kill all the niggers, or jews, or trans, or whatever.
Is that what you want for this society?
When have you seen that on Twitter?
That is not what Twitter under the fucking left was censoring....it was everything contradicting their false narratives.
PROVE IT
Jonathan Turley says there should be NO restrictions whatsoever as to what can be said on twitter. If that were to be the case do you seriously think we wouldnt see tweets like I just suggested we will see?
Please.
Correct. The Founding Fathers would agree and I agree.
If that were to be the case do you seriously think we wouldnt see tweets like I just suggested we will see?
Maybe. It is hard to imagine someone doing that. BTW, Musk is setting up his own moderation policies. We shall see if that includes the obvious racist speech you seem to be worried about
Now you are hedging saying maybe Musk's moderation will prevent racist hate speech.
That is not congruous with total freedom of speech. You dont get to have it both ways.
I'm not hedging. It makes no difference to me. I'm for free speech and always down with the lying left!
I certainly don't want to hear or read that crap, but I can block that stuff myself. Giving others the power to decide what you and I can say and write or read and hear is far more dangerous than a few ignorant racist's rantings.
No, such speech is already censored. Do you think a tv news show doing interviews on the street will let that go out over their airwaves? Hell no. Try sending a letter to the editor section at a newspaper and see if they will print it? lol. Put that message up on the bulletin board of your local community center and see what happens. The New York Times gets thousands of online comments a day, thousands, try saying kill all the n-----s in any of those comments and see what happens.
But twitter should be immune to such censorship? Why.
By the way, all of the above media entities would also censor insane conspiracy theories on their platforms as well.
How many censored the Russia/Collusion hoax?
Most of those entities are also partisan and slant their reporting one way or the other but Twitter is a Town Square and in my opinion twitter and facebook are public utilities like a telephone. There's also big difference when it's the Government demanding censorship. If I don't like what you're saying I'll move on but I sure as hell don't want the Government or anyone else deciding what you're saying is unfit for me to hear so I can't even make my own decision about what you've said.
Responsible conservative media censors hate speech and insane conspiracies as well.
Twitter should be allowed to be at least as responsible as Fox News or The National Review.
No one is guaranteed a "right" to say whatever they want. On a street corner maybe, in a publication, no. There is no such guarantee nor should there be.
Crickets ..... chirp, chirp ...
Fascists against freedom of speech.
What the leftist version of Democracy has become.
Since the election of Biden the radical left has been incredibly honest about how they feel about free speech, national sovereignty, justice and the well being of the American people.
So who or what should be the final arbiter/authority as to what constitutes truth, fiction, misinformation, disinformation. malinformation, and outright lies??
People who can tell the difference between the ring of truth and absurd conspiracy theories. Its actually not hard to do , although many on the right seem incapable.
Then why the fear of free speech???
No matter who "fiery" the speech...no matter how threatening it sounded...we have always allowed it:
Free speech is easy when you agree with it.
It only gets difficult when you don’t. Letting speech you disagree with, stay uncensored, is real free speech.