By: Jože Biščak
It is becoming increasingly clear that those of us who warned that the Digital Services Act (DSA) would mean censorship and control over citizens were right.
The tension between platform X and the European Commission has continued ever since billionaire Elon Musk took over the platform. He stated clearly that there would be no more censorship, that everyone would be able to express their opinions and share their beliefs. However, the latest dispute between him and the Brussels bureaucrats is not so much about freedom of speech in the abstract sense, but about which ideas and posts are acceptable and which are not, or which should be sanctioned. Both Musk and the Commission talk a lot about freedom, but they understand it differently: while Musk, as a libertarian, sees freedom of speech as an absolute human right, the other side sees it as limited (by the DSA).
The dispute between platform X and the European Commission reached a new peak at the beginning of December, when unelected officials imposed a €120‑million fine on Musk for alleged violations of the DSA. Brussels accuses the platform of granting ‘blue checkmarks,’ which symbolise transparent user accounts, without proper verification; of preventing ‘approved researchers’ from accessing data; and of lacking transparency in its advertising archive. In other words, the platform and Musk did not behave as the European Commission demanded, and the Commission is clearly used to everyone listening to it and obeying unconditionally (at one point even cucumbers had to be perfectly straight because Brussels said so). To bring X into line, they punished it financially. In truth, the fine amounts to about 0.03 percent of Elon Musk’s wealth, and he immediately reacted angrily, saying that it was not about the money (which he could easily pay) but about principle. “The European Union should be abolished and sovereignty returned to the states so that governments can better represent their citizens,” he wrote.
He is right, he is absolutely right. More and more citizens of EU countries feel the same. Perhaps not so much that the Union should be abolished entirely, because the concept itself is good, it was meant to ensure the free movement of goods and services (which is why Slovenia joined), but because Brussels is literally shrinking the sovereignty of nation‑states, and the European Commission under Ursula von der Leyen presents itself as a supranational government that can order people around however it wishes. And if a country does not obey, it is punished. Even the constitutions of individual states have become practically meaningless, because European institutions claim that their acts and directives stand above national constitutions. As Europeans complain more loudly about this power Brussels has appropriated, with social networks (especially X) playing the most important role in spreading pro‑sovereignty ideas, it is clear that free online platforms have become a thorn in the side of the European bureaucracy. They have no control over the free discussions that Musk’s platform enables. This is why the accusations about blue checkmarks and the advertising archive are merely a smokescreen to hide the third accusation against X: blocking access to data for (European) ‘researchers.’ In reality, they want access to the algorithms, where they could determine which topics the algorithm pushes to the forefront while suppressing those that Brussels dislikes. Bureaucrats want control over the free discussions of users on X. Elon Musk does not want this and is very unlikely to give in, especially with the Trump administration behind him. The Commission has given him six months to meet its demands; otherwise, the platform will face further (and higher) penalties.
For now, the EU leadership still holds all the levers of power, but dissatisfaction among Europeans, who increasingly realise that political elites have misled them (from uncontrolled immigration to the destructive green agenda), is growing. Let us hope that Brussels will not be able to sustain its policies much longer and that freedom will be returned to the people.
