Geert Wilders for Breitbart: Unlike Trump’s America, EU Bigwigs Censor to ‘Protect Democracy’ From Voters
Next Tuesday, the European Parliament will discuss with the European Commission the “need to enforce the Digital Services Act to protect democracy on social media platforms, including against foreign interference and biased algorithms.” The Digital Services Act (DSA) is the central European Union legislation regulating social media.
The EU bigwigs in Brussels are up in arms because Elon Musk had a chat on X with Alice Weidel, leader of the Alternative for Germany. The AfD is an increasingly popular right-wing party which the EU establishment wants to isolate in a cordon sanitaire. According to the European Commission, Ms. Weidel’s chat with Mr. Musk “improperly boosts” her agenda over her political rivals ahead of Germany’s upcoming Feb. 23 elections and constitutes “foreign interference” in the German electoral process.
Brussels has also reacted in outrage to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s recent announcement to end the fact-checking era on Facebook and restore free expression. Zuckerberg regretted that in the past, Facebook had suppressed information, and he confirmed years of systematic online censorship, either on demand of politically biased “fact-checkers” or under direct government pressure. While the American elections were “a cultural tipping point towards prioritizing speech,” Mr. Zuckerberg pointed out that Europe has yet to come to the same conclusion. “Europe has an ever increasing number of laws institutionalizing censorship,” he said.
The Meta boss was at once denounced by the European Commission. He is not telling the truth when he says the EU is institutionalizing censorship, European Commission Vice President Henna Virkkunen whined. It is “not true” and “misleading,” she wailed. At the same time, she took a snipe at Elon Musk for his support of AfD on X, threatening the platform with legal sanctions, saying that X has “obligations under our Digital Services Act and X is supposed to assess and mitigate the risks they are posing to our electoral processes and to civic discourse.”
Last December, the presidential elections in Romania were annulled after an outsider had surprisingly won the first round with 23 per cent of the vote. According to the EU bigwigs, this was the result of foreign “disinformation” spread via TikTok and other social media platforms.
While the EU’s Digital Service Act (DSA) pays lip service to freedom of speech, it acts as an instrument to restrict freedom of speech and censor social media platforms so that “risks to the electoral processes and civic discourse” are “mitigated”. On these platforms, politicians such as I, who were the victims of media bias, but also every citizen, can freely speak our minds and voice our opinions without “mitigation” by the powers that be. The fact that platforms such as X and Facebook are owned by Americans is used as a xenophobic pretext to add “foreign interference” to “the risks to Europe’s electoral processes and civic discourse.”
The EU uses the word “democracy” in the same way as the former Communist dictatorship in East-Germany used to call itself the German “Democratic” Republic. In the infamous G“D”R, “democracy” also needed to be protected against critics who were said to be in cahoots with foreign powers.
I am the leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV), by far the most popular party in the Netherlands. For decades, the PVV and other parties like mine have hardly ever been fairly treated by mainstream journalists. But never did the European Commission voice any concern about how the disinformation about us might “improperly boost” our political adversaries or how it might subvert the “electoral process.” I am not complaining, just pointing out the EU hypocrisy.
I am not complaining, because guess what? The scandalous behaviour of the mainstream media had the same effect as water on a duck’s back. It flowed off us. The voters kept coming to us because voters are mature enough to make their own decisions.
For decades, we were also the victims of outright censorship by some social media outlets. Parties like mine have been censored online for years. I am one of many like-minded European politicians whose views were banned. Whenever we voiced our opinion on Islamization or mass immigration, so-called fact-checkers had our messages removed as “hate speech”. It happened to me on Twitter — before that company was bought by Elon Musk — and on YouTube.
Despite years of social media censorship, however, we kept winning the elections. Voters can feel when they are being lied to. They sense when they are being deceived. They realize well enough that the authorities are deceiving them when social media remains silent about what is happening on the streets of Europe. Indeed, the electorate is mature enough to make their own decisions.
Companies like X and Facebook are abandoning censorship. I applaud them for that. The mainstream media say they “sprint to kiss Trump’s ring” and “suck up to the incoming president,” but the decision is plain common sense. Censorship is a costly business and just not worth the effort. The mainstream media refuse to see it, but they are a dying breed. Who cares about what The Guardian writes?
Parties such as mine have survived decades of media bias and disinformation; if anything, it has only made us stronger and more popular. Ultimately, we won. This will happen everywhere. Ultimately, freedom and truth will prevail! The only “risk to the electoral processes” that I see in Europe, is the EU “interfering” in elections because Brussels does not like the outcome and claims it has to protect “democracy” against the voters.
Geert Wilders MP is leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV), the largest party in the Dutch Parliament and in the Dutch government coalition.
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