A senior EU commissioner has said that she is “disappointed” by Twitter’s lack of censorship amid the bloc’s efforts to crack down on free speech online.
Věra Jourová, the Vice President of the European Commission, has stated that she is “disappointed” in Twitter over its failure to implement a sufficient regime of censorship in-line with the bloc’s ideology.
The EU has held the social media company in particularly low regard since it was taken over by Elon Musk late last year, with officials repeatedly threatening to ban the platform from the bloc if it did not comply with local censorship demands.
Speaking to the AFP, Jourová said that EU officials were already “disappointed” that the platform had not yet taken to axing content the EU does not like, arguing that such a failure to censor certain points of view now amounted to allowing “disinformation” on the website.
“Twitter is falling short of its commitments to the anti-disinformation code,” she claimed, referencing rules that are soon to become mandatory for large tech companies throughout the European Union.
She went on to insist that the EU was still in favour of free speech, but only when such speech does not go too far in offending the sensibilities of the bloc’s officials.
“…I would really do wish to explain to Mr. Musk our philosophy that we are protectors of freedom of speech, protectors of freedom of expression,” the vice president argued. “But freedom of speech in the EU is not unlimited.”
“I would compare the situation with driving on the highway,” she said. “You drive on the highway and overstepping that speed (limit), you get a penalty — and one day you might be deprived of your driving licence.”
She went on to say that the Commission now wanted internet giants to “intensify their work against Russian propaganda”, a process in the EU that has so far involved implementing a bloc-wide firewall against a number of Russian news outlets, meaning that anyone within the union’s borders now needs a VPN to access outlets such as RT and Sputnik News.
Despite Musk repeatedly claiming that he is pro-freedom of speech, he has so far abided by EU demands to curb the public’s access to certain content, with even the Twitter accounts for certain news outlets being rendered unviewable for those living in countries under the control of Brussels.
Account withheld message when viewing the account of a censored Russian news outlet from within the European Union (Source: Twitter)
This has not been enough to satisfy the demands of the union’s leaders though, with officials now regularly threatening to see Twitter banned from the bloc in the same way as the Russian news outlets if it fails to implement the EU’s censorship regime to the letter.
Speaking to Breitbart Europe on the issue, populist parliamentarian Tom Vandendriessche MEP argued that the EU’s hatred for Twitter was ultimately born out of fear, with the politician explaining that the availability of “free information is far too dangerous for those in power”.
“That’s why they want to ‘regulate’ social media,” the Flemish nationalist explained, describing free speech as having the power to disrupt the “imposed version of reality” favoured by Brussels.