English auto-translation (via Firefox)
The EU can ban X and Facebook, and Poland should strive for it
Lukasz Lachecki
Ban X would be a good start to anti-Musk counter-offensive. Thierry Breton, former Internal Market Commissioner for the European Commission, said in January, it is “legally possible”.
When last week we watched the spectacle that the American administration prepared for the president of Ukraine in the White House, there were conscious voices that our – i.e. European – priority does not necessarily have to be to choose the most pleasant patron of the threes of the USA, China or Russia. Instead, we should develop a way to reduce Facebook and X’s self-will in the European Union.
Jacek K put it more precisely. Sokołowski, author of last year's book Transnaród. Poles in search of the political form he wrote (on X): “The current state of Fejsbuk and Twitter is that all this shit would be best in Europe.”
And it is not about the “censorship” whose declaration was tried to force on Magdalena Biejat Bogdan Rymanowski, nor about the restoration of standards or hard-acting, protracted negotiations. Rather, it is about immediately limiting the activities of foreign agents – and this is known to be a position that connects over divisions.
Tango with a phalanx (and the cottage)
As a user of both services, I can add some observation to Sokołowski’s observations. X seemed to be a platform dominated by pornbots and accounts funded by the FSB long before Elon Musk actively joined the AfD campaign and every next J.D. performance. Vance wiping his mouth with freedom of speech only accelerated the transformation of the service into a dysfunctional, glazing base of anti-Ukrainian propaganda.
On Facebook, it’s a little bit funnier – generated by artificial intelligence, touching photos of non-existent centenarians baking bread, farmers with a Kharkonium and older men waiting for a suspended dinner get thousands of likes and supporting comments. The graphics often hidden behind the “independent” farms of religious trolls and retired groups, whose role in the service was reinforced a few years ago, is 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 let’s quote Sokołowski again – it’s not that every voice has a meaning: “You are stupid and without it. Soszials are there to fool the political elite and decision-makers, so that they believe that what they see in the soshrooms are theirs, and that there is no other world outside the soszły.
In order for policymakers to believe that the world exists exclusively on social media, they cannot be marginalized by these media. If Musk had cut Tusk’s reach overnight, the whole scam behind the former Twitter would have become transparent and had the system mechanisms looked at. That’s why the Prime Minister is so far enjoying the relative sympathy of the American algorithm, spins popular, funny rolls on X and TikTok and the scouts of his subordinates for not being eagerly to talk about the contemporary Joseph Goebbels website.
“It is unacceptable for a politician not to have his social media today,” said KO politicians from the boss, who lives in an illusion similar to the hero of an old joke that stands in front of a vending machine with drinks, throws more coins and can’t move away from the machine, shouting to the hurricating people lining up in the queue: “You’ve gone crazy? I still win!” The feeling that Tusk, Myrcha and Sikorski can “play” an algorithm is completely narcissistic and naive.
Nevertheless, it continues and drives Polish politicians, who are less and less convening press conferences and are not too worried about relations with the media – even if they were financed from the State Treasury. It is not known why we have to learn about the actions of the Polish authorities through a private American company managed by a fascist car dealer. Looking at the current state of diplomatic relations – I might as well look for reports on the Polish rule of law on Weibo.
Act of Disobedience to the Act
While almost everyone realized that the recent announcement of changes to Facebook’s moderation was a tribute to Mark Zuckerberg’s new American ruler, there was rarely information about his actual denial of the provisions of the Digital Services Act (DSA), which came into force in the European Union only a year ago, on February 17, 2024.
The document was adopted, among others, in response to at least well-known examples of users since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, influencing the results of democratic elections, child abuse and lynching. Not without significance was that the European Council voted on the adoption of the DSA in October 2022 – after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The aim of the provisions contained in the DSA was, among others, to counteract social risks, to strengthen supervision, to combat illegal content, traceability of entrepreneurs and to implement transparency measures. It takes about 10 minutes in any social media to find evidence that “deregulation” in this respect on any U.S. service has completely gotten out of hand.
Jim Stewartson, an American podcaster, says Europe should block all Musk companies operating on our continent. This would probably mean a legislative and diplomatic route through the torment, but banning X could be a good start to a beautiful adventure. Thierry Breton, former Commissioner for Internal Market at the European Commission, said in January, to block X is “legally possible”.
Order the Order
The Brazilian Supreme Court took advantage of a similar opportunity, introducing blockade X last year, after many months of tensions between the country’s authorities and the platform, caused, among others, by the role of the X in the winding up of the riots after the defeat of Jair Bolsonaro in the presidential election. Unfortunately, the ban lasted just over a month – but for trying to circumvent it, the platform paid a $5.2 million fine. Probably not much, but still more than Google will put on financing the science of artificial intelligence for Poles in the next five years.
Will the Poles love it?
Of course, the decision to go to war with Musk and his platform will not entail only enthusiasticly set for the ban of millions who will unite and start playing to the goal of the EU instead of going on the leash of the richest man in the world. The resistance would be great – and supported by the propaganda machine of the platforms themselves.
Mentzen, Fogiel and Giertych, like Tusk, are convinced that in this race they have forums due to their perspicacity, charisma and brilliant strategies, and their voters are eager to sip a spin on “freedom of speech”, “censorship” and “eurocolk”. However, slightly less detached politicians and politicians should start to point out that it is a fixed-sum game in which a slot machine with cans wields and program businessmen close to the hostile European president of the United States.
Perhaps it is worth thanking Jarosław Kaczyński that he has anointed a beautiful mind for his candidate for president, which even algorithms may not help, and wait with building an anti-Musk coalition with Germany, France or Sweden until the period after the presidential elections, which a possible offensive would undoubtedly influence.
However, avoiding discussion on this topic would deprive Poland of one of the best opportunities to deepen integration at the European level in the new situation in international politics. Both the candidate Trzaskowski, the former Minister of Administration and Digitization, as well as the current head of the ministry responsible for digitization, certainly understand that this is a solution that does not require monstrous costs, as in the case of turbo-acceleration in the arms race, but protecting us from the fascist cyberthree, which will otherwise undoubtedly come.
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