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US to bankroll far-right think tanks in Europe against digital laws
(www.brusselstimes.com)
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this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2026
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There is a humanist middle ground between domestic state censorship on the one hand and capture of the media and political agenda by American tech-giants on the other. Both can lead to totalitarianism.
I for one would be more concerned about the increasingly fascist foreign power seeking to meddle with political discourse and sovereignty in the EU.
One can find common ground here: anti-censorship; free speech. An enemy of your enemy is temporarily helpful; help which is important to further mutual aims.
Just be specific: what european law do you think is holding back free speech? Just so we know what you really mean when you say that.
Let me give you an example of one that I think upholds free speech: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bans_on_Nazi_symbols by setting ground rules. Without rules, there is no free speech, it's like the rules of the road: you need a common ground to even start to debate things productively.
The UK is the most obvious: https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2025/09/09/people-are-being-thrown-in-uk-prisons-over-what-theyve-said-online-can-free-speech-be-saved/
Examples from the article:
"Authorities arrested a grandmother for silently holding a sign outside an abortion clinic that said “Coercion is a crime, here to talk, if you want.”"
"...sentenced to 31 months in prison for what police said was an unacceptable post. In contrast, a child molester was sentenced to 21 months in the slammer."
Do you find it acceptable for common speech to be a crime worse than child molestation?
Edit: Added some quotes from the article
Yeah, ok, the grandma thing is wrong, not sure how a court would ever mishandle that. But the elon thing, you'd hope he'd hold himself to the same standard that he holds whole countries to.
Adopting the American obsession with 'free-speech' is not helpful imo.
For one, the term itself has become a right-wing dog-whistle that essentially means that billionaires can publicly say fucked up stuff without pushback by civil society, courts, etc. Their freedom of speech entails complete freedom from consequences for that speech.
Also, there is no such thing as free speech in a society of such structurally unequal footing. There are many, many reasonable and kind people all over the world speaking freely in daily life. But their reach is naturally limited to their local community.
They are being drowned out, however, by individuals such as Musk and Trump who have immense reach on both linear and social media and both actually own their own social media platforms. If they exercise their free speech, they sway international politics, the stock market, and slowly derode our shared sense of moral decency.
There is no free speech without independent and pluralistic media, rule of law and a liberal civil society.
So if you're concerned about free speech, you should rage against centralized social media, consolidated media conglomerates, overexerted courts and public bureaucracies, and the general sense of despair and hopelessness that causes the public to become apolitical - and certainly don't put your hope in the help of subversive far-right tinktanks financed by American fascists.
Also, on that note, you can be sure that those right-wing think tanks will not only promote 'free speech', whatever that means. They will fight European integration and the EU, social security, liberal democracy, LGBTQ rights, etc.