EU Threatens Elon Musk: “It’s Not Your Rules Which Will Apply Here”

As new Twitter owner Elon Musk noted that censorship zealots have exhibited an “extreme antibody reaction” to the idea of free speech returning to the platform, the EU issued a threat to Musk, telling him that his ‘rules’ won’t apply in their territory.

Speaking to The Financial Times (paywalled), EU commissioner for the internal market, Thierry Breton, declared that Musk’s Twitter will be forced to comply with European digital rules, or be subject to massive fines and even a ban throughout the bloc.

“We welcome everyone. We are open but on our conditions,” Breton passive aggressively declared.

“At least we know what to tell him: ‘Elon, there are rules. You are welcome but these are our rules. It’s not your rules which will apply here,’” the EU elitist added.

Breton continued, “Anyone who wants to benefit from this market will have to fulfill our rules. The [Twitter] board will have to make sure that if it operates in Europe it will have to fulfill the obligations, including moderation, open algorithms, freedom of speech, transparency in rules, obligations to comply with our own rules for hate speech, revenge porn [and] harassment.”

What kind of freedom of speech would that be? Speech that the EU agrees with?

“If [Twitter] does not comply with our law,” Breton warned, “there are sanctions — 6 per cent of the revenue and, if they continue, banned from operating in Europe,” he further threatened.

The FT notes that Breton was a key architect of the bloc’s Digital Services Act, which will see social media companies forced to present to unelected EU bureaucrat regulators how they are moderating ‘disinformation’ and ‘war propaganda’ (i.e. anything that doesn’t fit the EU narrative) on their platforms.

It’s essentially another Ministry of Truth in action.

The EU’s threats to Musk come on the heels of Joe Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki lobbing a veiled warning that the administration is “concerned” about the “harm” caused by “large social media platforms.”

Musk has described free speech as “the bedrock of a functioning democracy,” and vowed to expunge bots and make the platform’s algorithms open source.

He has also signalled that all opinions within “the law” will be classed as freedom of speech on Twitter.

Perhaps most tellingly, Musk noted that Twitter suspending The New York Post over the Hunter Biden laptop story was “incredibly inappropriate”:

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