How the EU is Forcing Twitter to Censor (and Musk Can’t Stop It) | Brownstone Institute - Robert Kogon:
October 7, 2022 - "Twitter is obviously at the center of what is commonly known as “Big Tech censorship.” It has been busily using the censorship tools at its disposal – from removing or quarantining tweets to surreptitiously 'deboosting' them (shadow-banning) to outright account suspension – for at least two years now. And those who have managed to remain on the platform will have noticed a sharp upturn in its censorship activities starting last summer. For most of this time, the main focus of Twitter censorship has, of course, been supposed “Covid-19 disinformation'....
"But why in the world would Twitter censor such content? The expression 'Big Tech censorship' implies that Twitter et al. are censoring of their own accord,.... But what Twitter is doing by censoring is precisely subverting its own business model, thus undermining profitability and putting downward pressure on share price. Free speech is obviously the lifeblood of every social media. Censored speech ... translates into lost traffic for the platform. And traffic is, of course, the key to monetizing unrestricted online content....
"There has been much talk recently of the Biden administration exerting informal pressure on Twitter and other social media to censor unwelcome content and voices. But ... There has surely not been any threat of fines. How could there be without a law authorizing the executive branch to impose them? And such a law would be blatantly unconstitutional.... But what if a foreign power made such a law and it de facto abridged the freedom of speech also of Americans? Unbeknownst to most Americans, this has in fact occurred and their 1st Amendment rights are being vitiated, namely, by the European Union. There is a financial gun pointed at Twitter. But it is not the Biden administration, but rather the European Commission, under the leadership of Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, that has its finger on the trigger.
"The law in question is the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which was passed by the European Parliament last July 5.... The DSA gives the European Commission the power to impose fines of up to 6% of global turnover on 'very large online platforms or very large online search engines' that it finds to be non-compliant with its censorship requirements. 'Very large' is defined as any platform or search engine that has over 45 million users in the EU. Note that while the size criterion is limited to users in the EU, the sanction is based precisely on the company’s global turnover.
"The DSA has been designed to function in combination with the EU’s so-called Code of Practice on Disinformation: an ostensibly voluntary code for 'combatting disinformation' – aka censoring – that was originally launched in 2018 and of which Twitter, Facebook/Meta and Google/YouTube are all signatories. But with the passage of the DSA, the Code of Practice is evidently not so 'voluntary' anymore. There is no need for complex legal analyses to show that the sanction provisions in the DSA are intended as the enforcement mechanism for the Code of Practice. The European Commission has said so itself – and in a tweet no less!
"In fact, the Code has never really been all that voluntary. The Commission had already made its desire to 'tame' the US tech giants known previously, and it had already flexed its muscles, imposing massive fines on Google and Facebook for other alleged offenses. Moreover, it has been brandishing the threat of the DSA fines since December 2020, when it first put forward the DSA legislation.... The eventual passage of the legislation by the parliament has always been treated as a mere formality. Indeed, the above-cited tweet was posted on June 16 of this year, three weeks before the parliament voted on the law!
"Curiously, the publication of the draft legislation coincided with the authorization and subsequent rollout of the first Covid-19 vaccines in the EU: the legislation was unveiled on December 15 and the first Covid-19 vaccine, that of BioNTech and Pfizer, was authorized by the Commission just six days later. Vaccine skeptics or critics would quickly become the principal target of EU-driven online censorship thereafter.
"Six months earlier, in June 2020, the Commission had already placed the focus of the Code firmly on alleged 'Covid-19 disinformation' by launching a so-called Fighting COVID-19 Disinformation Monitoring Programme, in which all Code signatories were expected to participate. Some attempts had already been made at monitoring compliance with the Code, and signatories were expected to submit annual reports. But, as part of the Covid-19 monitoring program, signatories were now required – “voluntarily,” of course – to submit monthly reports to the Commission specifically dedicated to their Covid-19-related censorship efforts. The rhythm of submission was subsequently scaled back to bimonthly.
"Twitter’s reports, for example, contain detailed statistics on Covid-related content removal and account suspensions. The below chart, showing the evolution of these numbers from February 2021 (shortly after vaccine rollout) through April 2022, is taken from Twitter’s latest available report from June of this year. "Note that the data concerns content removed and accounts suspended globally: i.e. Twitter’s efforts to satisfy the Commission’s censorship expectations do not only affect the accounts of users based in the EU, but of users all around the world.
"The fact that many, if not most, of the accounts that have been suspended in this connection were written in English raises particularly troubling issues. In the aftermath of Brexit, after all, only around 1.5% of the EU’s population are native English speakers! Even supposing that policing speech was a good thing, what business does the EU have policing speech, or requiring social media platforms to police speech, in English....
"The Twitter report and those of other Code signatories can be downloaded here. If the numbers were to be continued, they would undoubtedly show a sharp upturn in censorship activities starting in late June/early July. Twitter users interested in the subject could not help but have noticed the massive purge of Covid dissident accounts that occurred over the summer. And this upturn was in fact entirely to be expected, since on June 16 – the day the European Commission posted its warning to online platforms reproduced above and three weeks before the passage of the DSA – the Commission announced the adoption of a new, 'strengthened' Code of Practice on Disinformation....
"Not only does the new Code contain no less than 44 'commitments' that signatories are expected to meet, but it also contains a deadline for meeting them: namely, six months after signature of the Code (cf. paragraph 1(o)). For original signatories of the new Code like Twitter, Meta and Google, this would bring us, namely to December. Hence, the sudden rush of Twitter et al. to prove their censorship bona fides....
"As part of the new Code, moreover, signatories will participate in a 'permanent task-force' chaired by the European Commission and that will also include'“representatives of the European External Action Service,' i.e. the EU’s foreign service (Commitment 37). Think about this for a moment.... American ... social media companies ... have been systematically reporting back to the European Commission on their censorship efforts for the last two years now and they will henceforth be part of a permanent task force on 'combatting disinformation'.... It is a matter of explicit EU policy and law that directly subordinates online platforms to the Commission’s censorship agenda and requires them to implement it on pain of ruinous fines.
"Note that the DSA gives the Commission 'exclusive' – in effect, dictatorial – powers to determine compliance and to apply sanction. For the online platforms, the Commission is judge, jury and executioner.... All official EU pronouncements on the DSA highlight the fact. See here, for instance, from the parliament’s Internal Market Committee, which notes that the Commission will also be able to 'inspect a platform’s premises and get access to its databases and algorithms'....
"Make no mistake about it. Twitter censorship is government censorship. But the government in question is not the US government, but rather the European Union, and the EU is, in effect, imposing its censorship on the entire world.
"Those hoping that Elon Musk’s buying Twitter, if it does indeed come to pass, will put an end to Twitter censorship are going to be in for a rude awakening. Elon Musk will be facing the same conundrum as Twitter’s present management and will be just as much hostage to the EU’s censorship requirements."
Read more: https://brownstone.org/articles/how-the-eu-is-forcing-twitter-to-censor-and-musk-cant-stop-it/
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
How Europe Censors What Americans Say Online - Reason TV, June 20, 2019:
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