The repeated interventions of Elon Musk, the boss of social network X (as well as Tesla and SpaceX), are raising hard questions. Can Europe’s public debate and elections ever be free of the scourge of foreign disinformation? And now Musk has been joined by TikTok, the Chinese-owned platform, and Meta, the company controlled by Mark Zuckerberg which encompasses Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads.
Writing in The Atlantic, American columnist Anne Applebaum outlines the stakes for Europe:
“TikTok says the company does not accept any paid political advertising. Meta, which announced in January that it is abandoning fact-checking on its sites in the U.S., also says it will continue to comply with European laws. But even before Zuckerberg’s radical policy change, these promises were empty. […] Several European countries, including the UK, Germany, and France, have also passed laws designed to bring the platforms into compliance with their own legal systems, mandating fines for companies that violate hate-speech laws or host other illegal content. But these laws are controversial and hard to enforce. […] Only one institution on the planet is large enough and powerful enough to write and enforce laws that could make the tech companies change their policies. Partly for that reason, the European Union may soon become one of the Trump administration’s most prominent targets.”
Having come into force last year, the Digital Services Act (DSA) “should enable Europeans to combat illegal content and all forms of misinformation on the internet, while the Digital Market Act [DMA, the EU regulation on online services] will target abuses of dominant positions”, as Virginie Malingre writes in Le Monde. The French daily’s Brussels correspondent explains that the major platforms affected by these laws risk a fine of up to 6% of their worldwide turnover in the case of the DSA and 10% for the DMA. As a last resort, they may also be forced to reduce their activities on European soil. With what results thus far?
“[S]everal investigations have been opened: ten under the DSA, including one against X, two against Facebook and two against Instagram; six under the DMA, including two against Alphabet, three against Apple and one against Meta. To date, only one of these has been closed, resulting in the withdrawal of [the app] TikTok Lite, which is highly addictive for young people, from the Old Continent.”
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The Le Monde journalist says that the Commission is trying hard to make its actions unassailable “so as not to be disavowed before the Court of Justice of the EU”. That will be a daunting task, she believes: “only 250 people are assigned to implementing the DSA and DMA, while Google, X and Meta have thousands of lawyers on the payroll”.
In an interview with Il Manifesto, the writer Carola Frediani suggests that “the EU legislation aims to increase the negotiating power of individuals – as well as states, naturally – since we are now in a situation where these major platforms are almost eroding state sovereignty”. For this specialist in digital rights and host of the Guerredirete platform, the EU’s initiatives are “almost a counter-attack” and perceived by the new US administration to be “an aggression against American industries”. After all, the big social platforms, starting with X, are “well and truly American and are seeking to entrench themselves under the Trump presidency [and] to escape this European policy.” Frediani lists the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs with outspoken libertarian and conservative – even reactionary – views, and sketches their motives:
“[W]hat unites their somewhat eclectic and contradictory visions […] is their contempt for liberal democracy […], civil society, checks and balances, and laws that limit the freedom of [their] companies. It is in this spirit that Musk and the others are moving to weaken the European Union and undermine its economic and strategic interests.”
A showdown between Musk and the EU is inevitable, believes György Folk, writing in HVG. “[Musk] controls a social network that is subject to the DSA; Tesla is a major player in European industry (the firm has a €4 billion Gigafactory in Berlin-Brandenburg Grünheide); SpaceX (and its associated satellite communications company Starlink) benefits from subsidies under EU space-research funding programmes”. With such tight links, says Folk, it is highly significant that Elon Musk “is splashing out to fund populist parties of the far right”.
In Tagesspiegel, Caspar Schwietering calls for a robust European response:
“The task of the European Union and national governments is to ensure compliance with European laws on social media. […] Hate and incitement to hate must have consequences. The authorities should take a close look at X […] We need to check whether Musk is using his control over X’s algorithms to give more resonance to far-right positions. Europe must not tolerate such manipulation of public opinion.”
“The EU must break big tech’s manipulation machine”, agrees Johnny Ryan in The Guardian:
“Ursula Von der Leyen and [Henna] Virkkunen [the EU Commissioner responsible for tech sovereignty] should do three things urgently to protect democracy. First, radically speed up action under the Digital Services Act against algorithms that derail political debate. [..] Second, apply serious political pressure on Ireland to get it to enforce the EU’s data protection law [the GDPR] against big tech. […] Third, national authorities across Europe should prepare themselves to take action against, and possibly even exclude, big tech’s algorithms from their markets […] if they resist regulation.”
But is there anything substantial that European leaders can do to hold back the tide? “None whatsoever” is the bleak conclusion of Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, writing in the Danish daily Politiken. This former head of the Reuters Institute for Journalism Studies at Oxford University explains his reasoning:
“[A]lthough both the UK and the EU have introduced new digital laws and presented them as a protection against disinformation and foreign interference, the legislation does not provide politicians with immediately useful tools. This can be frustrating, but in principle it’s understandable. Freedom of expression protects both Musk’s right to speak and our right to read what he says, if we wish to do so. […] This fundamental right […] is not limited to ‘correct’ speech, but also protects speech ‘that may shock, offend or disturb’. […] [T]he challenge for Europeans is that it will take time if they want to use the existing tools to silence Musk. […] It’s one thing to shut down one of Vladimir Putin’s media outlets, as the EU did in 2022. It is quite another to attack the White House, the richest man in the world and the forces in Europe that share his ideas.”
Perhaps, concludes Nielsen, “in the end, the least bad option is to believe in people’s ability to stand firm, despite the storm that is blowing in from all sides”.
In partnership with Display Europe, cofunded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the Directorate‑General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
