EU Commission attempts to take over the Internet – and takes on Elon Musk’s Twitter

Arrogance, disinformation, and threats - from an unelected French EU bureaucrat

Montage © Facts4EU.Org

This is what happens when you put a French bureaucrat in charge of the EU’s Single Market

Elon Musk, one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world, is now in charge of Twitter – the most important online channel for political views globally. The EU technocrats lost no time in telling him the EU Commission is now the boss of the Internet in Europe. Frenchman Thierry Breton, Single Market Commissioner, led the charge.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org looks at :-

  1. The EU’s arrogance towards Mr Musk
  2. The disinformation from the EU Commission
  3. The Commission’s new takeover of the Internet in the EU on Tuesday (01 Nov 2022)
  4. Will Musk be forced by EU law to ban the EU Commission from Twitter for ‘disinformation’?
  5. The supreme irony

1. The EU Commission’s arrogance towards Mr Musk

The Commission’s arrogance is best summed up by the following Twitter exchange on Friday (28 Oct 2022).

Instead of congratulating Elon Musk, the EU’s unelected Single Market Commissioner waded straight in with a threat. This behaviour will be familiar to all readers who have seen the same pattern of behaviour from these eurocrats towards the United Kingdom over the last six years, since the British people voted to leave its empire.

2. The disinformation from the EU Commission

"Europe is 1.5 times bigger than the United States, so the 1st digital market (...) Twitter will have to respect our rules"

IMPORTANT: EU Commissioners always refer to “Europe” when they mean the “the European Union”. See below: “Will the new EU law force Musk to ban the EU Commission from Twitter for ‘disinformation’?”

Brexit Facts4EU.Org Summary

The EU Commission's disinformation

Firstly:

  • The United States is a country
  • The EU is not. It is a disparate group of 27 countries, each of them dwarfed by the US
  • ‘Europe’ is far bigger than the EU and it includes the UK
  • The EU is NOT ‘Europe’

Secondly:

  • Monsieur Breton was knowingly wrong about the size of the EU27 countries
  • Population of the United States : 331,893,745
  • Combined population of the EU27 countries : 446,828,803

[Source: United Nations]

Even if Monsieur Breton considers the EU to be a country, its population is only 34.6% larger, not 50%. In approximate terms that’s one-third, not one-half. However, the picture gets worse for Monsieur Breton - see below.

Thirdly:

  • The EU is not “the 1st digital market”
  • No.1 is China
  • No.2 is India

[Source: OWID Oxford University}

Fourthly:

  • GDP of the EU27 : $16,752.0 bn
  • GDP of the US : $23,374.7 bn – 39.5% larger than the EU’s

[Source : World Bank, figures for 2021]

The US economy is larger than the economies of all EU27 counties combined – by almost 40%.

And finally:

  • Thierry Breton has 102.8 thousand followers on Twitter
  • Elon Musk has 113.5 million followers on Twitter
  • Elon Musk is 1,100 times more popular than Thierry Breton

[Source: Twitter accounts, 03 Nov 2022]

3. The Commission’s new takeover of the Internet in the EU on Tuesday (01 Nov 2022)

On Tuesday the EU’s new Digital Services Act came into force. This affects everyone in the EU27 who uses the Internet. Here is what the EU Commission says:

“Today, online platforms can be misused to spread illegal content such as hate speech, terrorist content or child sexual abuse material, as well as sell dangerous goods and counterfeit products, or to offer illegal services, exposing citizens to harm.”

The EU Commission has presented the new law as being a set of consumer and public protection measures and large parts of it are certainly devoted to this. However it also extends into the realms of content censorship, according to what the EU Commission deems to be good for its citizens.

Quoting from the EU Commission again - “What the new Digital Services Act changes: Very large online platforms and very large search engines will have to design their systems to tackle the risks of disinformation”.

4. Will the new EU law force Musk to ban the EU Commission from Twitter for ‘disinformation’?

There are different ways of characterising information which is incorrect or misleading. “Disinformation” means what is being said or written is knowingly or deliberately wrong. “Misinformation” means what is being said or written is wrong, but without any deliberate intent to mislead.

Given that Mr Musk is now being told by the EU Commission that his Twitter platform will have a legal duty to obey the Commission’s diktats, this has very interesting consequences. Below are some examples of disinformation from the EU Commission, which could result in them being banned from Twitter.

  • Using “Europe” when they know they are only talking about the EU27 – the European Union
  • Deliberately misleading nomenclature, eg “European Commission” instead of “EU Commission”
  • Describing Commissioners as having been elected, when the EU’s populace couldn’t vote for them
  • Using “elected” when every single Commissioner was the sole candidate
  • Using “united” about the EU27’s stance on particular policies, when the countries clearly are not

On specific issues and in thousands of statements and press releases, the EU Commission has published disinformation. We have the evidence should Mr Musk want it. Here is just one topical example:-

Insisting the NI Protocol was necessary to prevent a hard border between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland, when the heads of Customs in the Republic and the UK both said it wasn’t, as did the EU Parliament’s own expert report.

And finally…

Under the new EU law, Mr Musk should delete Commissioner Breton’s tweet on the grounds of it being “disinformation” and warn him he will be banned if he persists. Oh the irony….

Observations

The EU Commission doesn't do freedoms

As strong advocates of freedom of thought and expression, both Facts4EU.Org and CIBUK.Org (of which we are a key affiliate) objected to the banning and shadow banning of Twitter users. This was done by unknown individuals at the Company without any indication that they were qualified to make these judgements.

Elon Musk seeks to change this organisational mindset. The EU is going in the opposite direction with its new law, as Commissioner Breton indicated to Mr Musk quite forcefully.

We now seem to be at risk of replacing one bunch of ideologically-driven, unelected, Internet censors in California with another bunch in Brussels. For Mr Musk to be attempting to open up the Twitter debating platform just as the EU is seeking to close it down is a good example of how precious our remaining freedoms are and how vigorously they must be defended.

The EU Commission will of course protest that their new law is designed to protect the public. Unfortunately – and with considerable experience of how the EU works – we are very concerned about yet another encroachment into people’s daily lives by an autocratic and unelected monolith.

Ever more EU Commission control

One thing the EU is very good at is communication. As we have pointed out on many occasions, the daily propaganda they churn out is quite extraordinary and puts to shame the Comms functions of the UK’s Government Departments. The Internet is of course a very powerful tool of communication, so we are not in the least surprised to see the EU Commission want to take greater control over it.

Finally, Facts4EU.Org is subject to hate speech online all the time. We don’t like it but nor do we take any action. Instead we focus on continuing to publish factual content researched from reputable official sources, as this report shows.

Facts4EU.Org needs you today

We are a 'not for profit' team (we make a loss) and any payment goes towards the actual work, not plush London offices, lunch or taxi expenses, or other luxuries of some organisations.

We badly need more of our thousands of readers to become members, to support this work. Could this be you, today? Maybe you've been thinking about it, but just haven't got around to doing it? If so, let us reassure you. It's quick and easy and we use two highly secure payment providers. And we do NOT ask you for further support if you pay once - we just hope that you keep supporting us. Your membership stays anonymous unless you tell us otherwise.

Please don't assume that other people will keep us going - we don't receive enough to survive and we need your help today. Could you help us?

Most of our readers are well-informed and appreciate our fact-based articles, presented in a way you won't see anywhere else. We have far more to do in researching, publishing, campaigning and lobbying Parliament than we have in terms of the financial resources to fulfil these tasks. We badly need funding to continue - we rely 100% on public contributions from readers like you.

If you believe in a fully-free, independent, and sovereign United Kingdom, please join now. It’s quick, secure, and confidential, and you can use one of the links below or you can use our Support page here. You will receive a personal, friendly ‘thank you’ from a member of our team within 24 hours. Thank you for reading this.

[ Sources: As stated in the report ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Thurs 03 Nov 2022

Click here to go to our news headlines

Please scroll down to COMMENT on the above article.
And don't forget to actually post your message after you have previewed it!

Share this article on

Something to say about this? Scroll down for reader comments

Since before the EU Referendum, Brexit Facts4EU.Org
has been the most prolific researcher and publisher of Brexit facts in the world.

Supported by MPs, MEPs, & other groups, our work has impact.

We think facts matter. Please donate today, so that we can continue to ensure a clean Brexit is finally delivered.

Any credit card user

Quick One-off

Donate

From £5 - £1,000

Monthly

Subscribe

From £3 per month

Paypal Users Only - Choose amount first

Quick One-off

Monthly