The Assault on Freedom of Speech Intensifies
EU technocrats are legalising censorship faster than we can notice
The impact of the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA), which came into force relatively quietly, on freedom of expression in Europe will be devastating. DSA can be likened to an anvil where freedom of speech is lain down to receive ever harder blows from the sledgehammer of hate speech laws. And so it is not steel that hardens, but a more authoritarian grip on power.
Most of us know that totalitarian regimes like China, Russia etc treat their citizens' freedom of thought and expression like a rag. However, free speech is increasingly falling at the feet of a section of the Brussel's technocrats who have shifted the EU's legal framework more and more towards punishing thought and speech. The EU has become less tolerant of opinions that don't fall along the official conformist line. This was felt by many scientists, doctors and journalists during the Covid-crisis, and the trend has been worsening for some time now on issues such as climate change, migration, so-called minorities etc.
DSA as an anvil
Little attention has been paid to the multifaceted impact of the DSA, which came into force in August, on freedom of expression. Put simply, the DSA gave the European Commission the power to twist the arms of social media companies to force them to censor (i.e. prevent the distribution of, close accounts, etc.) so-called inappropriate posts and their authors. The Commission is thus imposing obligations on private companies, enforced by penalties, to "combat the spread of illegal content, online disinformation and other societal risks". If the big social media companies (Facebook, YouTube, X, Instagram, etc.) do not remove inappropriate content, they will face stiff fines of up to 6% of their global turnover. They could also be shut down in the EU.
The definition of "illegal content" covers a very wide range of potential postings - from counterfeit goods and war propaganda to messages declared by the authorities to be misinformation. A similar systematic crackdown on companies was also used by the Biden administration during the Covid-crisis, but has recently been explicitly condemned by various US courts under the First Amendment to the Constitution. In the EU, however, such pressure has now been legalised and is set to become the new normal.
The EU defines misinformation as false or misleading information that is disseminated without malicious intent, while deliberately disseminated false or misleading information constitutes disinformation. In both cases, there is an added dimension of harm to the public and, in the case of disinformation, also the intent to deceive or to secure economic or political advantage.
The subjectivity of these concepts is striking. "Harm to the public" or "misleading information" are definitions that can be used to arbitrarily restrict freedom of expression by criminal or administrative means, as is already the case in many parts of Europe.
Moreover, these concepts are being used to ensnare us in a legal maze with slogans like "safer internet", "less hate", etc., but which in reality mean a narrowing of the boundaries of individual freedoms. Listening to the accompanying rhetoric, one might think that the spread of misinformation should be limited, that it is easy to do, and that the power apparatus is there to act as an information judge. Who could tolerate a lie!
Unfortunately, such an approach is alien and detrimental to the rule of law, where freedom of expression is more highly valued under the constitution than the power to "combat" the spread of misinformation. It is also unrealistic, as it is more than difficult to find an objective judge of information in a self-centred democracy full of vested interests. Moreover, each step along the way comes at the expense of freedoms, and one step leads to another restriction or coercion. Misinformation and disinformation are often a societal symptom, not the disease itself, and dealing with them is much more complex than the authorities imagine.
EU bureaucrats themselves admit that there are major difficulties in fleshing out these vague definitions. They say that it is already difficult to reach an agreement within the EU on what constitutes disinformation because interpretations of what is problematic, harmful or even illegal depend largely on the specific political and cultural context and legal traditions of different countries. The main difference between disinformation and misinformation lies in the presence of intent, but it is difficult to determine in all possible cases whether or not there is an intent to mislead or cause harm. In addition, it is not clear who and how should determine "significant harm to the public".
The fight against disinformation has been explained by the desire to prevent deliberate offensive campaigns, i.e. to hinder propaganda by countries (China, Russia, etc.) opposed to the EU. Unfortunately, it has quickly spread to other areas in Europe, as the temptation to slip from fighting external enemies into censoring internal critics is strong. Examples of disinformation include criticism of the CO2-centred climate change narrative, the spread of misinformation on important issues such as elections and party politics, as well as information on Covid-19 and different health-related issues.
X does not want to obey

According to a recent study by the European Commission, X (formerly Twitter) is the biggest spreader of disinformation, followed by Facebook. To find it out, the study analysed 100 misinformation claims in Poland, Slovakia and Spain. But what those 100 claims were remains a mystery. The study alludes to a wide range of topics, including for isnstance migration, child abductions, health, climate change, the identity crisis and the Russo-Ukrainian war1.
On the basis of this study, the Commission's top officials issued a public warning to X to comply. The truth-tellers are the so-called fact-checking organisations, whose assessments are used to distinguish between true and false information. Their bite has been felt by many commentators and researchers. For example, Facebook's fact-checking service Leadstories flagged an article in one of the oldest medical journals, the British Medical Journal, as false, prompting the journal's editors to lodge a strong protest directly with Mark Zuckerberg.
X's owner, Elon Musk, is keen to protect free speech, so in the spring of 2023 X withdrew from the EU's Code of Practice on Disinformation. As a result, X has earned the particular disapproval of the European Commission, and Musk is under pressure to bring back the notorious 'content moderation' (read: censorship) to the platform he now owns.
In the US, too, the government has pressured social media to implement censorship, but only covertly, not as public policy. Moreover, the Biden administration's attempt to set up a special agency to deal with disinformation in 2022 failed miserably, and was only able to operate for a few months. The main reason for this may have been the strong constitutional protection of freedom of expression (the First Amendment), which was the basis for the strong reaction of various opinion formers against such an authoritarian initiative.
In the EU, on the other hand, with the great power of a technocratic bureaucracy, the lack of political accountability and the far worse state of protection of freedom of expression, opposition to such censorship schemes can come from within the member states. It will therefore be more difficult to implement in practice, but it is possible if European societies have a proper understanding of how, and by what means, freedom of expression is being curtailed under Brussels.
Hate speech laws as a hammer
Any responsible thinker should take this restriction of free speech by the hands of private corporations very seriously and take action to stop it. The DSA opens the door to further restrictions as censorship is on the rise in Europe and many examples should be a wake-up call to the unbelievers.
In Germany, the so-called 'Network Enforcement Act' (NetzDG) was adopted in 2017 and has subsequently been taken up as a model by authoritarian regimes around the world. This law has also inspired the drafting of the DSA. Hundreds of criminal proceedings have been launched in Germany in recent years, and police have raided the homes of people who the authorities say are spreading 'hate' on social media.
In the UK, a local politician was recently arrested for social media posts supporting freedom of expression. There is the infamous case of a street preacher who was arrested and charged by the police for calling a man who identified himself as a woman a man.
Päivi Räsanen, a long-serving Finnish MP who was prosecuted for openly quoting the Bible, has admitted that she never imagined that a law she helped pass would be used against her writings. In Norway, among other things, a criminal case has been brought against a women's rights activist who suggested on social media that a man who identified as a woman could not be a lesbian.
In France, prosecutors have criminally prosecuted citizens who have mocked public leaders in protest or who have been careless in their choice of words, for example in regards to migrants.
In Ireland, a particularly harmful hate speech bill is currently before Parliament, which includes also the possibility of punishing a 'pre-crime', i.e. someone who produces or possesses material likely to incite hatred against a group. In Spain, a number of different types of offences are punishable, such as hate speech, offences against moral integrity, threats to public order, insulting or defamatory offences and offences against public health. Increasingly, people can be imprisoned for their opinions and views. These examples often go unreported in the mainstream media, but social media reports still reports them more.
The criminal legalisation of the vague concepts of various hate speech laws has led to an expansion of repression and self-censorship in European societies so that freedom of expression is diminishing. This is a wet dream for those authoritarians who wish to silence ideological opponents and dissidents and impose a uniform pattern of thought and opinion on society. Part of this dream is the ability to extend control that artificial intelligence and other technological tools increasingly offer. Communist China shows what can be done with modern means in order to extend control and trample on individual freedoms.
It is not too late to refrain from such harm. John Stuart Mill has aptly said that:
we must consider that if some opinion is compelled to silence, we can hardly be sure that it does not express the truth. To deny this possibility would be to assume one's own infallibility.
1 The study formulated it as just that, not, for example, Russian aggression against Ukraine.