How about this “next pandemic”: the political virus of drastic showdowns with social media platforms that’s spreading in Europe, and beyond – in the wake of Telegram CEO Durov’s arrest in France.
A number of “ideas” are cropping up from various politicians, and now in Germany, the discredited (when it comes to supporting censorship) Greens have a solution for “online radicalization” – and it’s more radical censorship.
Greens MP and chair of the German parliament (Bundestag) European Affairs Committee Anton Hofreiter has told Funke Media Group over the weekend that as far as extremism goes – “one of the biggest problems is online radicalization.”
To make sure social companies align with whatever the government in Berlin decides is “anti-constitutional” and falls under the online radicalization category, Hofreiter is not ruling out blocking major platforms. (A similar “solution” was recently floated in Denmark.)
Naturally, this refers also (or perhaps, principally) to X and Elon Musk, who must “follow the rules.”
And look at Brazil, says the German press reporting about Hofreiter’s remarks. X has been banned there, with over 22 million users in the South American country cut off from the platform – but X has 106 million in the EU, and that business is “much more lucrative.”
The suggestion is that in order not to lose that market and avoid paying heavy fines, Musk might decide to agree to censorship demands.
More “gems” came out of Hofreiter, who, in truth, might be simply saying out loud what most of the elites in the EU are thinking (or doing): for example, infiltrating encrypted messengers with spies (“virtual agents”) who would report about the goings on in various chat groups.
That’s to help catch “possible criminals,” said the German MP.
Or anyone the government dislikes, in reality.
The pretext for such (somewhat unusual even for the Greens) narrative now being pushed has been an incident in front of the Israeli diplomatic office in Munich.
As was the case with the recent serious rioting in the UK, the authorities seem willfully blind to the deep-running real-world issues and causes of radicalization and are trying to use the ensuing turmoil to push for ever more online censorship – that supposed panacea for all of society’s ills.
