For the thousands of years of recorded history, free people have allowed, typically for the sake of expediency, for their governments to eventually take over more control of the population.
A recurring reason has been that those who did not have the same talents, work ethic, or just did not get the same breaks as others, have selfishly sought and voted to have the government redistribute wealth, assets, and even opportunities from the wealthy to whoever their political leaders decided should get the freebies, all in the name of “equity”.
The United Kingdom has done this in reference to creating a safe space online. The progressives have abandoned their speech rights as long as the government attempts to block and, if necessary, penalize others in their community for speaking openly online.
Their British government, led by Prime Minister Borris Johnson, is insisting that social media companies further take away their citizen’s free speech rights on their platforms. Because of weak people, they are putting in place further extreme measures, hoping to prevent anyone from getting their feelings hurt. The reality is that this is one of the reasons Johnson and others in Parliament were elected in the first place.
Taking no time, a spokesman for UK Prime Minister Johnson has already demanded that Elon Musk keeps Twitter “responsible” through content censorship. The political leaders are insisting that Twitter follows their country’s censorship laws when Elon Musk takes over the reins.
Musk, who has self-identified as a “free speech absolutist”, has said that his aims are to increase the transparency of the platform he acquired for around $44 billion, while also noting that “free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy”.
However, while some have celebrated Elon Musk’s acquisition of the social media company, authorities in Britain appear to be afraid that the takeover may get in the way of their scheduled updated censorship program.
“Regardless of ownership, all social media platforms must be responsible,” says a spokesman for the Prime Minister regarding the purchase, according to The Times.
“That includes protecting users from harm on their sites,” the spokesman continued. “It is too early to say what — if any — changes will be made to how Twitter operates.”
Britain already has in place strict censorship laws requiring social media companies to take down content that state authorities deem to be illegal once such content is brought to their attention.
However, the “Conservative Party” government has recently expanded its censorious aims to tackle what it deems to be “harmful” content on social media and is now preparing to pass the so-called Online Harms Bill, which will soon require platforms to pre-emptively censor “legal but harmful” content or face massive fines.
Under the proposed legislation, social media companies would be put at the mercy of the country’s media regulator Ofcom, which would ban the likes of Twitter from allowing “harmful” content on their platform, including so-called “hate speech”.
It should be noted that, in the eyes of the government, “hate speech” is defined as: “all forms of expression which spread, incite, promote or justify hatred based on intolerance on the grounds of disability, ethnicity, social origin, gender, sex, gender reassignment, nationality, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation, color, genetic features, language, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth or age”.
Companies who refuse to comply with the Online Harms Bill will be liable for fines of up to 10 percent of their global turnover, with the bosses of such enterprises facing sanctions up to and including jail time if they refuse to play ball, 1984 style.
The radical London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, has also made demands for more censorship on social media platforms under the auspices of fighting “prejudice”.
“Free speech cannot mean a free pass for hatred,” the mayor wrote online after news of the purchase emerged. “We must not forget the impacts of online hate speech, which fans the flames of prejudice and leads to appalling and tragic real-world violence.”
Free speech cannot mean a free pass for hatred.
We must not forget the impacts of online hate speech, which fans the flames of prejudice and leads to appalling and tragic real-world violence.
Social media companies must do more, not less, to protect their communities.
— Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) April 26, 2022
“Social media companies must do more, not less, to protect their communities,” he also wrote.
Thierry Breton, the European Union Tsar for its internal market, has demanded that Musk also play ball with his bloc’s rules and regulations, including those in relation to the censorship of unwanted ideas.
“Elon, there are rules,” the Financial Times reports Breton as saying. “You are welcome but these are our rules. It’s not your rules which will apply here.”
“Anyone who wants to benefit from this market will have to fulfill our rules,” the EU bigwig reportedly continued. “The board [of Twitter] will have to make sure that if it operates in Europe it will have to fulfil 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.”
“If [Twitter] does not comply with our law, there are sanctions — 6 percent of the revenue and, if they continue, banned from operating in Europe,” the EU bureaucrat went on to threaten.
Be it cars or social media, any company operating in Europe needs to comply with our rules – regardless of their shareholding.
Mr Musk knows this well.
He is familiar with European rules on automotive, and will quickly adapt to the Digital Services Act.#DSA
— Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton) April 26, 2022
By: Eric Thompson, editor of EricThompsonShow.com. Follow me on Twitter and MagaBook
This story syndicated with permission from Eric Thompson, Author at Trending Politics
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