Elon Musk is Threatened with “Sanctions” at World Economic Forum If He Doesn’t “Behave” and Stop Free Speech
“The time of the Wild West is over,” the European Commission’s Vice-President for Values and Transparency Věra Jourová warned Elon Musk at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.
Speaking with Euronews Next in Davos on Wednesday, Jourová said Twitter would face sanctions if it didn’t comply with the EU’s new online regulations.
Asked if the E.U. could force big platforms like Twitter to comply with the new online laws that aim to restrict speech and confine public opinion to state-approved narratives, she said that there was “nothing stronger than legislation in force.”
“We will have the Digital Services Act [DSA]. We will have the Code of Practice as a part of this legislation,” Jourová said.
“So, after Mr Musk took over Twitter with his ‘freedom of speech absolutism,’ we are the protectors of freedom of speech as well,” she claimed.
Jourová did not further clarify what she was talking about.
It isn’t the first time the E.U. has fired a warning shot at Elon Musk about allowing users to speak their minds freely on the digital platform.
Earlier in January, the European Commission warned Elon Musk that Twitter must do much more to protect users from “hate speech,” “misinformation” and other “harmful” content, or risk a fine and possibly even a ban under strict new EU content moderation rules.
Thierry Breton, the EU’s commissioner for digital policy, told Musk that the social media platform will have to significantly increase efforts to comply with the new rules, known as the Digital Services Act, which are set to take effect next year.
The two held a video call in January to discuss Twitter’s preparedness for the law, which will require tech companies to act as Thought Police on their platforms for content that the European governments find objectionable.
Zuckerberg Admits Facebook’s “Fact-Checkers” Censored Information That Turned Out to Be True, Damaging Trust
by Kyle BeckerJune 12, 2023 Featured
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has acknowledged that Facebook’s “fact-checkers” have censored information that was actually true, leading to a loss of trust.
During an interview on the “Lex Fridman Podcast,” Zuckerberg disclosed that Facebook and Instagram had censored skeptics of the Covid pandemic without substantial evidence to prove the claims false. However, subsequent developments have shown that much of the so-called “misinformation” was either true or subject to debate.
Zuckerberg acknowledged the challenges of identifying misinformation on social media and conceded that the corporate media and Big Tech were mistaken in censoring skeptical viewpoints.
“So misinformation, I think, has been a really tricky one because there are things that are obviously false, right, or they may be factual but may not be harmful,” said Zuckerberg.
“So are you gonna censor someone for just being wrong? If there’s no kind of harm implication of what they’re doing? There’s a bunch of real issues and challenges there.”
“Just take some of the stuff around COVID earlier in the pandemic where there were real health implications, but there hadn’t been time to fully vet a bunch of the scientific assumptions,” he continued.
“Unfortunately, I think a lot of the kind of establishment on that kind of waffled on a bunch of facts and asked for a bunch of things to be censored that, in retrospect, ended up being more debatable or true,” he added. “And that stuff is really tough, right?”
“It really undermines trust,” Zuckerberg said.
Facebook’s fact-checkers have faced accusations of suppressing legitimate information that contradicts the preferred narrative of certain political groups, often overriding scientific experts and renowned authorities to stifle dissenting opinions. There has been additional criticism, such as the censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story just before the 2020 presidential election.
During an interview with Joe Rogan in August, Zuckerberg mentioned that Facebook restricted the reach of the Hunter Biden laptop story under pressure from the FBI. The bureau had alerted them to the potential release of Russian disinformation aimed at harming Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.
Zuckerberg stated that, considering the FBI’s reputation as a legitimate and professional law enforcement institution, they took the warning seriously and acted in accordance with the FBI’s guidelines on Russian disinformation. He did not recall whether the FBI explicitly identified the Hunter Biden laptop story as disinformation at that time.
Whether it was the bogus overstatements of mask efficacy for stopping the spread of the virus, the false claims that getting vaccinated will stop transmission and protect one’s family and community, or the gross exaggerations of the effectiveness of lockdowns, social media platforms like Meta engaged in a deceptive propaganda campaign that has wrought immense damage to the fabric of American society.
It is refreshing to see a Big Tech CEO admit to propagating the Big Lies. But the damage is already done.
This cannot be undone and I am sure it will be greatly appreciated.
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