Throwback to less than a month ago:
This may seem like a German issue and is probably not first page news in the USA, but Musk is retweeting fascist shit from Radio Genoa were they (and thus Musk) complain that boats rescuing refugees in the Mediterranean sea receive state help from Germany, thus they hope the AfD (extreme right wing, actually fascist German party currently polling very high) wins the next elections and stops this “European suicide”. Here is one article in German, the links to X (née Twitter) are in the original English.
It makes me really angry that someone who is grabbing subsidies by the billions in Germany, flouting building, safety, water and labour regulations left and right in his Tesla Petafactory and commiting many other crimes, ranging from petty to serious with abandon has the chutzpah to criticise a government he does not understand.
I keep waiting for EU authorities to quit dicking around on Musk’s unsubtle flouting of his legal obligations on numerous fronts (GDPR, disinformation, Nazi promotion, anti-harassment moderation, etc) and to finally say “fuck it, twitter is banned and blocked in Europe.” He’s never going to comply, so this end is inevitable. Just pull the goddamn trigger already.
But of course the wonks in Brussels love their committees and their reports and their processes, so I’m not holding my breath while I wait.
I think it is not in the hands of the EU to ban twitter*, but they could use the fines forseen in the GDPR to ruin Musk. It would be a long legal battle as he would probably delay, delay, delay… but the chances are excellent. And it would be fun to watch.
Instead you see hordes of local and regional politicians bending themselves and all regulations in place backwards to fulfill his every whish, and still Musk mocks them on twitter and calls them incompetent and they enjoy it! Un-be-lie-va-ble!
*Could be wrong there, perhaps they do have this competence. But my feeling is that it is up to the Member States to ban one by one.
This page details a mechanism by which the Commission can solicit a court order to suspend an online platform EU-wide if it’s in violation of the Digital Services Act (which Musk and x-Twitter most certainly are). There is a side note that the DSA does not itself define what constitutes illegal content in the EU, and that if certain content is deemed illegal only by and in one or more member states, the DSA is not available for enforcement; but if the violation is at EU level, then the DSA and its suspension option comes into play.
It also states that this will be “a last resort,” after the imposition of fines as you say. And on that point, it seems plausible to me that if the EU keeps hitting x-Twitter with penalties, Musk will himself voluntarily end European accessibility.
One way or another, the charade that Musk has any intention of following the law needs to end.
I agree that it’s very plausible because he’s a big squealing baby, but on the other hand, he’s pretty desperate for revenue. I can see a path where he ignores the fines until the EU shuts him off, and then he throws a big victimhood hissy fit. Or threatens to turn off Starlink.
Yeah, it’s believable that Musk would dig in his heels on paying escalating fines and thereby force the issue. But the penalties don’t go away, and that kind of legal liability hangs over the company’s books and affects its financial picture in a different way compared to debts with private creditors who have to sue to collect and will settle for partial payment.
On the Starlink threat, he may well try it. But I suspect the loss of that service would be less painful than the disruption caused by Putin’s threatened cutoff of energy supplies, and the EU didn’t blink in pivoting away from Russian pipelines. Maybe I’m wrong, but that for Musk would be an empty bluff, I think.
Well I was still peeking into twitter now and again because I think get the best feel for what’s going on in Ukraine from there, but I just deleted it. If I made all the rules in the world, I’d take steps to disable starlink or at least seize control of it away from Elon.
The problem is that the Ukrainians claim they desperately need Starlink to fight the Russians. That is a mighty lever Musk has there. And Europe does not want Ukraine to lose this war (nor do I!). We urgently need a European Starlink.
The Russians have realized they need a Russian Starlink too, and the Chinese have taken note that they need a Chinese one before their next war. What a mess!
Yes, taking control and giving Ukraine complete access would be my preference.
I know, I know.
A novel application of the legal doctrine of eminent domain for sure. Nationalization of “strategic” industries has a long and storied history all over the world.
But if not over Starlink now, this kind of issue will eventually come to light as some private tech is developed that is too dangerous or too vital or too all-contolling to be permitted to remain in private hands. AI coming immediately to mind.
Of course that kind of eminent domain would be a lot easier to achieve where a single country is involved. As with "nationalization above. Doing the same on an international basis would be utterly new legal, diplomatic, and geo-political ground.
Am I the only one who thinks “Starlink” sounds like “starling” said with a Russian accent?
Well, it does represent a tremendous swarm of “birds” communicating chattily with one another.
Yes, darlink, Natasha does enjoy good moose and squirrel joke. Starlink great for baking in pie. Almost like blackbird.
I knew there was a good Natasha joke in there.
Perfect
They probably also prefer fines. More defensible, greases the wheels, and likely not discrete events.
This is really, really interesting:
Summary: Ahead of Musk’s acquisition, far-right agitators lay out a road map for deliberately transforming Twitter into a weapon in the war against the “globalist empire” (i.e. a conspiratorial stew of the Left and the Jews). Then Musk completes the acquisition, and over the next year his actions very closely follow the road map (dump the blue check system and absorb the loss of advertising money, demonize the ADL, etc.). And it’s known that Musk is aware of this article, because there’s an evidentiary filing which includes a text in which an unnamed associate of Musk directly sends it to him with an exhortation to begin the war.
So anyone who still believes Musk transformed Twitter into a Nazi-friendly cesspool by accident is standing on rapidly shrinking ground.
Why am I not surprised the trump administration was in on it from the git-go?