L’UE può vietare X e Facebook e la Polonia dovrebbe spingerlo (traduzione nei commenti)

Banning X would be a good start to an anti-Musk counteroffensive. As Thierry Breton, former internal market commissioner at the European Commission, said in January, this is “legitimately possible.”

As we watched the spectacle put on by the U.S. administration for the Ukrainian president at the White House last week, there were some conscious voices saying that our – i.e., Europe’s – priority is not necessarily to choose the friendliest patron from the trio of the U.S., China or Russia. Instead, we should work out a way to curb Facebook and X’s arbitrariness in the European Union.

This was put more precisely by Jacek K. Sokolowski, author of last year’s book Transnaród. Poles in Search of Political Form, who wrote (on X): “The current state of Facebook and Twitter is such that all this crap would be best just blocked in Europe.”

And it’s not about “censorship,” the declaration of which Bogdan Rymanowski tried to force Magdalena Biejat to declare, nor about restoring standards or tough, protracted negotiations. Rather, it’s about immediately restricting the activities of foreign agents – a position that, as is well known, unites across divisions.

Tango with a phalanx (and chałkoń)

As a user of both services, I can add some observation to Sokolowski’s statement. X seemed to be a platform dominated by pornobots and FSB-funded accounts long before Elon Musk actively joined the campaign for the AfD, and each successive performance by J.D. Vance wiping his mouth with freedom of speech only accelerated the service’s transformation into a dysfunctional, gnarly base for anti-Ukrainian propaganda.

On Facebook, it’s a little funnier – artificial intelligence-generated, touching photos of non-existent centenarians baking bread, farmers with chalcon and elderly men waiting for dinner to be served on hold garner thousands of likes and supportive comments. The graphics, often hiding behind religious fanpages captured by political staffers or “independent” troll farms and pensioner groupies whose role in the site was strengthened a few years ago, are just a prelude to the propaganda brainwashing that awaits us in the months leading up to the presidential election.

So X caters to the young angry, Facebook to the autumn of life, grooming users with content not yet (and only seemingly) related to politics. But – and here again to quote Sokolowski – it’s not that every vote matters: “You guys are stupid and without it. The soszials are there to stupefy the political elite and decision-makers, so that they believe that what they see in the soszials are their voters and that there is no other world outside the soszials.”

For policymakers to believe that the world exists only in social media, they cannot be marginalized by it. If Musk were to cut Tusk’s reach overnight, the whole scam behind the former Twitterer would become transparent and make one look at the mechanisms of the system. That’s why, for the time being, the prime minister enjoys the relative sympathy of the American algorithm, spins popular, funny rolls on X and TikTok, and scolds his subordinates for not too readily garnering discussion on the service of a modern-day Joseph Goebbels.

“It’s unacceptable for a politician not to have his social media today,” KO politicians heard from their boss, who lives in an illusion similar to the protagonist of an old joke who stands in front of a vending machine, drops in more coins and can’t walk away from the machine, shouting to the people hurrying him along in line: “Are you guys crazy? After all, I’m still winning!” The feeling that Tusk, Myrcha and Sikorski can “cheat” the algorithm, however, is completely narcissistic and naive.

Nonetheless, it persists and drives Polish politicians, who are convening press conferences less and less frequently and are not overly concerned about media coverage – even if it is funded by the Treasury. It is unclear why we have to learn about the actions of the Polish authorities through a private American company managed by a fascist car salesman. Looking at the current state of diplomatic relations – I might as well look for reports about the Polish rule of law on Weibo.

Poland should, but it’s hard to imagine considering that 50% of people vote for PiS and конфедерация.

X and Facebook are a cancer for democracy. Don’t forget Brexit.

DO IT ALREADY… And create EU social media.

The state of Polish twitter is fucking toxic that that itself should be enough for a ban in the country.

Yesterday was already too late. Good ridance.

BS, good idea, but there will never be the courage and the consensus among EU members to do it.

This mentality of banning everyone and everything you dont like is exactly what is making people on the right more extreme.

Just do it! Its full of Russian bots and Trump propaganda anyway. Only disinformation brainwashing our citizens into thinking climate change is fake, wokeness is worse than war crimes and other completely unhinged opinions.

Holy shit you know something is a good policy plan when the bots are this active in opposing it.

Banning social media websites for not complying with existing EU laws on disinformation is not censorship. You will still be able to communicate online, even get your Russian botfarm slop, I promise, you’ll just have to look harder and it won’t flood half the internet constantly.

Really showing all the people who say the EU want to control information how wrong they are…

I support this but thousands of Europeans will be put out of work who are directly employed by these companies.

Its easy to say ban them but not so simple to do.

Banning whole platforms like X or whatever won’t solve anything. The best way of protecting a free and open society is a solid eduction for everyone and the availability of good media for getting a factual, critical and differentiated analysis of the complex political topics we are facing nowadays. What we need is a culture of political discussion, that is not about domination over your opponent by any means possible, but that is actually aimed in expanding your understanding and finding a solution together.

Every European country should at this point. It’s an absolute cancer to society.

I second this

Absolutely, Russia and the US are now both trying to manipulate the dumbest of us to elect traitors such as le pen, afd, orban and trump, and they will succeed if we dont do something to remove the amount of propaganda that are fed to our populations. Look at the guy that almost got elected in romania, look at the rise at other far right parties in several European countries.

Imagine if we had a fico or an orban in every single European country, all the increase in military envesting in wouldn’t mean shıt if let the Russian and American puppets run our governments.

Go for it. The misinformation running there is insane.

DON’T ban anything, free speech forever! Just educate, promote your views and/or platforms you want to broadcast them on…
Once governments start banning one thing, they won’t stop there and continue somewhere else…