At the time of writing, Belgium and France have yet to form a government, a process complicated by the desire to exclude far-right parties from the vote. However, some neighboring countries have made such a decision, admitting radical right-wing parties into their administrations.
“Finland, Italy and Slovakia are joined by two other EU countries with governments led by extremist parties that were previously ostracised,” he said. Petr Yedlica ~ in Weather poll. In Croatia, “this is the third consecutive government led by the traditionally nationalist but pro-Western right-wing party HDZ”, and the first to include the Patriotic Movement (MP, far right).
In the Netherlands, it took a whopping 223 days for a government led by former intelligence chief Dick Schupps to take office on July 2. He has no political affiliation, but he says he leads the most right-wing government in recent history. Politico. The early years of the Schoofs government were marked by tensions between the coalition parties. Diuberce Kuipers ~ in Free Netherlands, At least that is the case, given the accusations and criticisms Geert Wilders has heaped on his partners and their anxiety over his increasingly outrageous statements. Wilders’ far-right Freedom Party (PVV) won the 2023 parliamentary elections.
Using the freedom granted to them by their “mere” mandate as MPs, the Builders are given the unpleasant impression that they want to permanently monitor the audience of Schoops and X (formerly Twitter) and impose their views on the entire coalition. “Many voters expect the government to fall prematurely due to differences of opinion,” Kuipers notes.
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It’s probably no coincidence that Wilders has chosen the most divisive social network to provoke the government. Since being acquired by American-South African tycoon Elon Musk two years ago, the first truly global agora has become a playground for hate speech, conspiracy theories, and far-right bots. “X was once billed as a ‘global town square’ where journalists, politicians, and concerned citizens could gather for public debate. But given the number of journalists, academics, and left-leaning users who have left, that’s unlikely to happen again,” he laments. Catherine M. Fitzgerald ~ in conversation.
In the name of free speech, the owner of Tesla and SpaceX has actually re-entered or promoted figures previously banned by their management, and has not hesitated to violate the rules of their platforms by sharing false information and deepfakes (videos in which AI impersonates real people). When the richest man in the world holds the world’s biggest digital megaphone, the consequences cannot be limited to free speech.
We saw it again this summer, with anti-immigrant riots in several British cities following rumours that the man who stabbed three children to death at a dance class in Southport, North West England, was a Muslim asylum seeker (the alleged perpetrator was a British national of Rwandan parents). The riots were amplified by “influential people” close to the radical right, such as Stephen Yabsley-Lennon (better known as Tommy Robinson) and Andrew Tate.
Both men were unbanned by Musk, who then added fuel to the fire by skillfully claiming that “civil war is inevitable” in Britain. This led to Alan Rusbridger British daily The Sun criticized Musk as an “arsonist carrying a giant matchbox.” Independent. In his magazine, view The editors discuss “the way Twitter/X operates — or doesn’t operate,” and “the way the platform is used to promote hate, not violence; and, perhaps more importantly, the way it erodes the sense that some things can be verifiable facts and others can’t.” Rusbridger cites an essay by American writer Jonathan Rauch. Constitution of Knowledge (Brookings Institution Press, 2021), Rauch lists four areas that “allow us (most people) to live in reality-based communities: science and academia, journalism, law, and government.”
But Rusbridger points out that “escaping that reality starts with attacking the ‘swamp’ or ‘mud’ of scientists, lawyers, journalists, and government. And it goes further. (…) It has taken centuries of conscious effort to build a constitution of knowledge that, as Rauch put it, ‘saves us from ourselves.’ Unchecked social media is doing the opposite, leading to a world in which, as numerous surveys show, we increasingly don’t know who to trust or what to believe.”
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“This summer we witnessed something new and unprecedented,” he said. Carol Cadwalladr ~ in Guardian: “The billionaire owner of a tech platform has openly confronted an elected leader and used his platform to undermine his authority and incite violence. The summer 2024 riots in Britain were Elon Musk’s test balloon for the US election in November,” the far right and social networking expert added. “He got away with it,” he said. “And if you’re not scared by the immense supranational power and potential consequences, you should be.”
This is especially true as these platforms continue to advocate for self-regulation even as they appear increasingly free of rules and safeguards. “Twitter (now X) laid off more than half its trust and safety team. But so did every tech company we know. Thousands of workers previously hired to combat misinformation have been laid off at Meta, TikTok, Snap, and Discord. Just last week, Facebook shut down CrowdTangle, one of the last remaining transparency tools.”
Last month, the European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry BretonI wrote to Elon Musk, reminding him that as the head of X, he has a legal obligation under European law to prevent the “spread of harmful content.” The richest man on earth responded with a meme that echoes his ideas on freedom of expression and his vision of a global agora. How inspiring.
If X seems to cater to the interests of the far right, Telegram seems more politically neutral but no less toxic. Its co-founder was recently arrested in Paris Pavel Durov As far as we know, he has always refused to interfere with the promotion or blocking of accounts hosted on his messaging service. Telegram has provided an alternative to the Internet in countries where freedom of speech is under attack by the authorities, starting with Russia, but it is also popular with all sorts of pro-Kremlin agents.
“The unmoderated mix of users, including those from two warring armies, reflects Durov’s ideas about freedom of expression precisely.” Andrey Soldatov and Irina Borogan ~ in Sepa: “Everyone should be able to express their opinions on social media, and no government should control them. (…) His quasi-anarchist stance seems to echo the ideology of the hacker movement in the early 1980s, but it is not a sustainable strategy today, when governments around the world are pushing back against a laissez-faire approach to online governance.”
“Is government coercion the only way to enforce rules?” Soldatov and Borogan ask. They offer a beginning of an answer. “Social media is an integral part of our social fabric, and our society is perfectly capable of creating control mechanisms that don’t involve arresting CEOs for lack of self-restraint, whether through nongovernmental organizations, parliaments, or congressional hearings.”
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