‘Shut up’, they explained

The Brussels Effect is the hopeful notion that the EU would become the “regulatory superpower” by creating new governance structures for the world, which would be induced to adopt them lest they lose access to the Single Market and its affluent consumers. The functionalism that merged the original Coal and Steel community into a quasi-federal union would spread beyond Europe as rules written in Brussels dictated the terms of trade and competition globally. The notion that the world might not accept the innate wisdom of functionaries beavering away in the bowels of the Berlaymont was inimical to those who believed the EU had mastered the art of enlightened government and that a grateful world would embrace Europe’s example. In case the lure of trade alone didn’t persuade recalcitrant foreigners, whacking huge fines on global revenues would discipline them. The possibility that the world might bite back at the sage majesty of the EU was largely ignored.

This imperial vanity of the self-anointed regulatory superpower infected a broad range of expansive EU laws, but the Digital Services Act has provoked the strongest response, not surprisingly because it caught the attention of the combative American President. Europe’s great and good had long concluded that Elon Musk’s X permitted mere citizens to exchange opinions in a disorderly and unmonitored fashion, which might diminish the deference owed to their political masters.  This could not stand, and so the Commission imposed a €120 million fine on the social media platform for the grave offenses of offering “blue checks” to paid subscribers, failing to identify its advertisers, and declining to provide “researchers” with its internal data. In a world ruled by the Brussels Effect, the fine would be paid, X would adopt the Commission’s remedies, and the EU’s pet NGOs would be free to ransack company data in pursuit of further violations, presumably until the company was replaced by a docile Europe-based competitor.  

All right-thinking people on both sides of the Atlantic loathe Musk and the free access to the digital public square afforded by his X.  Unfortunately for the EU, this sentiment does not encompass the current US administration, which imposed visa bans on Thierry Breton and the heads of leading “disinformation” NGOs.  Breton is the former Internal Market Commissioner who shepherded the DSA into law and famously penned a letter on EU stationery warning Musk against his planned interview with then-candidate Trump. The visa ban Breton strikes at the aristocratic privileges accorded EU grandees, which clearly do not extend across the Atlantic. Leaders of three NGO’s charged with flagging “misinformation” and other purported dangerous content were also hit with visa bans. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained that the US will protect the First Amendment rights of US companies and the general principle that free peoples should enjoy the free exchange of information. While European officials also claim to protect free speech, they simultaneously endorse “guidelines,” “guardrails” and various protections designed to hinder the dissemination of disfavoured opinions.

A distinct aroma of fear wafts around the EU’s use of the DSA to control free speech.  Populists are on the rise in nearly every EU country, not because they scroll X but because they sense their governing elites have failed them. The past fifteen years have seen a succession of policy shortcomings and outright failures emanating from Brussels. Monetary union led to brutal austerity in southern Europe and massive bailouts that the public was previously assured were proscribed by EU law. Engagement with Russia financed a war machine unleashed on Ukraine, now bankrolled by a Europe with no clue as to how to end hostilities. European economies are stagnating, with no sign of renewed growth in sight. The EU’s traditional cash cow Germany is struggling with high energy costs, declining export markets and waning competitiveness. Onerous environmental regulations propounded by Brussels have stifled economic vitality across the Single Market. Mass migration was sold as an answer to Europe’s demographic crisis, but introduced millions of new arrivals more eager to draw generous social benefits than pay taxes on working incomes. That commoners might object to these policies and voice their opinions online poses a danger to the great European project, hence the panicked imposition of censorship under the rubric of “safety”.  Select NGOs are bankrolled and tasked with thwarting manifestations of public discontent.

Populism is the natural reaction to governing failures; the strength of a populist moment is a rough measure of those failures. By this calculus, the rise of the AfD and the National Rally in the two largest EU states implies a history of recent policy fiascos. But rather than engage with the concerns of its citizens, the EU prefers to censor the means by which these citizens share those concerns online. Shooting the bearer of unwelcome news is a hallmark of authoritarians throughout history. Like kings of old, the EU fears open debate of its decisions and uses the DSA to stifle it. Excluding legitimate policy grievances from public discussion only inflames dissent and pushes it toward toxic extremism.  

The new US National Security policy drew a clear distinction between Europe, toward which it professed admiration, and the EU, which it sees as the agent of Europe’s decline, in large part because of the detachment of the Brussels apparatus from the organic national affinities that comprise Europe. National leaders are often inducted into the Brussels bubble where they develop greater affinities for their highly educated, multilingual social peers than they retain toward their countrymen. National identity at the upper reaches of the EU persists only in cuisine and sport. The EU will not thrive by insulating those who devise rules in a crusade for a regulatory imperium from the 450 million actual Europeans who must suffer the consequences of misbegotten policies. Rather than attempting to regain control over social media, EU leaders might consider regaining control over their national politics.