German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said that Europe must enact strict speech regulations on Elon Musk’s X platform to fight so-called “disinformation”.
Habeck, the likely candidate for chancellor for the leftist Green party in the upcoming elections, laid out his vision for Germany and Europe in a speech to the Neuhardenberg Castle Foundation on Saturday, including more internet censorship in the wake of Donald Trump’s victory.
“We cannot put democratic discourse in the hands of Elon Musk and Chinese software,” Habeck said, per Welt. Therefore, he argued, strict EU regulations must be applied to platforms such as TikTok and X.
The vice chancellor also called for Berlin to take an aggressive stance towards the Trump administration regarding trade and defence, arguing that the U.S. “needs us too… if Trump threatens, then we don’t have to hide.”
However, years of green policies advocated by Habeck’s party, including shutting down nuclear power entirely in the country, left Germany vulnerable to outside forces, notably the invasion of Ukraine and the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines.
The sorry state of the German economy resulted in the leftist coalition government collapsing this week, in part due to concerns about Trump’s return to the White House.
Habeck’s desire to further censor X was echoed in Paris, with French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot telling Le Parisien on Saturday: “We will never accept that public debate is outsourced to deregulated social networks in the hands of special interests, whether American or Chinese.”
“Let us hope that he does not inflict on American democracy the treatment he has given to Twitter. Democracy is a fragile treasure,” Barrot added.
The European Union has long been at odds with Elon Musk over his efforts to reduce censorship from the previous Twitter regime. Notably, in August, then-EU censorship czar Thierry Breton demanded that Musk censor a live interview conducted with then-candidate Donald Trump.
The Frenchman warned that he would enact censorship powers granted to him under the draconian Digital Services Act (DSA), which include hefty fines and a potential ban from operating in the bloc if Musk refused to promote content which could “generate detrimental effects on civic discourse and public security” in Europe.
While the Biden administration refused to condemn the censorious threats from the other side of the Atlantic, there have been indications that a second Trump White House would be much more aggressive in responding to Brussels’ attempts to limit free speech.
Referencing the threats from Breton, then-vice presidential candidate JD Vance suggested in an interview with podcaster Shawn Ryan in September that Washington could make military support contingent on upholding key American values.
“What America should be saying is if NATO wants us to continue supporting them and NATO wants us to continue to be a good participant in this military alliance, why don’t you respect American values and free speech?” Vance said.
“It’s insane that we would support a military alliance if that military alliance isn’t going to be pro-free speech… we’ve got to say American power comes with certain strings attached, one of those is respect free speech, especially in our European allies.”