Vera Jourova may not fully comprehend the unease many Europeans feel at having (paying for, really) nothing less than a commissioner “for values and transparency” – yet, that is her current high-ranked job with the European Commission.
And, she is not shy to chastise major social media and their owners as effectively ignorant – if not plain uneducated – about anything from language to law. That is, if and when they try to push back against censorship, or – because Jourova would not call censorship what it is – “Europe’s limit of freedom of speech.”
So much for transparency, not to mention, values.
The latest attack is, above all, aimed at X, and the platform’s owner, Elon Musk. Judging by her statements, Jourova wouldn’t mind the EU bureaucracy having a hand in the company’s HR decisions.
Like so: “Words have meaning (- not yours! critics might argue) and that is why we would like them (X) to hire the professionals who can do this job.”
The job Jourova has in mind is to somehow “reconcile” the very concept of free speech with what she says are history and laws, and for some reason, languages themselves in use in EU member countries, that apparently dictate their stances on an issue so fundamental as free speech.
The job that X at this time lacks, according to the commissioner, is “professionals” to properly, turns out, do “professional fact-checking.”
One of those imaginary at this time people’s tasks would be truly Herculean: basically, make it all make sense. For one, the EU is a democracy, not to mention one that has a whole commissioner to promote values and transparency – and yet, it looks hot and bothered to limit free expression.
To justify this shenanigans, Jourova goes to the EU bureaucrats’ “safe place” – which happens to be fear-mongering about “disinformation,” and the supposedly catastrophic harm it can do if information is not – “limited.”
Jourova – who is, like the rest of her ilk, currently campaigning ahead of the European Parliament elections this June – wasn’t above bringing up “bloody lessons from our history” to bolster her case of Musk’s supposed insufficient understanding of Europeans’ supposed extraordinary sensitivity to free speech.
“This world has been broken, damaged somehow,” Jourova said, and then went on to pretend to reveal why: “My generation has spoiled a lot of things.”
But it’s not generational. It’s squarely ideological and political. Yet Jourova is sure it’s now up to younger generations – and more censorship – to clean up what her clique considers “a mess.”
