By Carlos Esteban*
It has always been a mystery how large multinational corporations can shamelessly promote the most radical ideas of progressivism, even when such a focus is detrimental to their sales.
It has always been said that all corporations want is to increase their profits and business share, so it is not easy to explain these persistent efforts to alienate their customers.
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This is especially true for the tech companies whose censorship rage has been widely denounced, whether it’s pandemic dogma, the war in Ukraine, or transgender people.
In their case, the loss is even more apparent because they cause it directly by shutting out what they consider rogue users and, indirectly, by making them much less attractive to those seeking spaces for free expression.
In the case of Twitter, which went so far as to exclude the sitting President of the United States himself, and which just censored the Florida State Health Commissioner (a public authority in violation of Twitter’s own rules), many are celebrating in anticipation of the return of freedom of debate with Elon Musk’s takeover.
However, this could be just an illusion because the authorities force the social network to censor under the threat of heavy fines.
Like the European Union.
On July 5, amid general indifference, the European Parliament passed the EU Digital Services Law (DSL), which gives the European Commission the power to impose fines of up to 6% of global turnover on “major online platforms or search engines” that it deems to violate censorship rules.
It affects all platforms, with more than 45 million users in the EU.
The DPL is supposed to work in combination with the so-called (and presumably “voluntary”) EU Code of Conduct on Disinformation, initially introduced in 2018 to enforce its covert censorship and to which Twitter, Facebook/Meta, and Google/YouTube are signatories.
Now, with the law, it is no longer very voluntary, and in fact, said legislation becomes its weapon, its enforcement mechanism, and the Commission confirmed this in a tweet…
We have already heard Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, call for universal censorship on the networks before the UN, and although this woman, who governs just over five million people, has little geopolitical weight, in this case, she speaks for the entire Western political class.
Indeed, Brussels has long had a soft spot for the networks.
The LSD proposal was presented in December 2020 by the Commission, which we already know is diminishing the role of Parliament in our beacon of democracy.
The presentation of the bill coincided with the approval and subsequent use of the first Covid 19 vaccines in the EU.
On Dec. 15, the legislation was introduced, and just six days later, BioNTech and Pfizer’s first Covid-19 vaccine was approved by the Commission.
From then on, vaccine skeptics or critics would quickly become prime targets for EU-driven online censorship.
Six months earlier, in June 2020, the Commission had already focused the Code on alleged “COVID-19 disinformation” by launching the so-called COVID-19 disinformation monitoring program, in which all signatories to the Code were to participate.
Some attempts have already been made to monitor compliance with the Code, and signatories were expected to submit annual reports.
Under the Covid-19 monitoring program, signatories were now required to submit monthly reports to the Commission specifically addressing their Covid-19-related censorship activities, “voluntarily,” of course.
Subsequently, the frequency of submission was reduced to bi-monthly.
The law directly subjects online platforms to the Commission’s censorship plan. It requires them to implement it under threat of ruinous fines, granting the Commission “exclusive” (dictatorial in every sense of the word) powers to determine compliance and impose sanctions.
The Commission is a judge, jury, and executioner for online platforms.
* Carlos Esteban, 58 years old, fifteen years at the leading economic daily EXPANSIÓN, then part of the Recoletos Group, the last three years as head of Interactive Services on the newspaper’s website.
Then in Intereconomía, where I founded the Catholic weekly ALBA, I wrote opinion in ÉPOCA, where I also covered the International section, for which I was responsible when La Gaceta was born (as a generalist newspaper).
For some years, I have been working as a freelance, collaborating with different media.
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