Sandro Gozi, European Union parliament member, wants Elon Musk’s Twitter operation gone. Out of the European Union.
Not no matter what. Only if Twitter — “X” — keeps flouting the EU’s censorship rules.
Gozi says: “If Elon Musk does not comply with the European rules on digital services, the EU Commission will ask the continental operators to block X or, in the most extreme case, force them to completely dismantle the platform in the territory of the Union.”
Oh dear.
This threat comes right after EU official Thierry Breton’s threatening letter to Musk about his impending Twitter interview with Donald Trump. Musk told Breton to “[obscenity deleted]” and proceeded with the interview. Other EU arbiters of speech quickly dissociated themselves from Breton’s threat.
So maybe Gozi’s confidence about what fellow EU commissars will do if Musk does not play ball is misplaced. Perhaps the others will think about how Twitter users throughout Europe would react if their X accounts became “ex-” accounts.
Various Italian officials, Gozi’s countrymen, roundly repudiated his gabble.
“Silencing the voice of millions of people in order to strike out at those who think differently from them?” challenged Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini. “Unacceptable and disturbing.”
The political party of Giorgia Meloni issued a statement saying that the “contemporary left [are] allergic to opinions that are not aligned with their mainstream, and inquisitors of anyone who does not submit to their suffocating cloak of conformism.”
Elon Musk likely sees the truth: this fight is winnable.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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