I don't think unlimited free speech is the answer anymore. I see a lot of bad actors taking advantage of this. For example a lot of republican anti-LGBT propaganda is flowing across the Atlantic through Instagram and TikTok. A lot of people are now repeating the same tired tropes like the toilet thing (which make no sense of you think about it). A lot of people making themselves angry about made-up scenarios that aren't even real. These are organised manipulation campaigns targeted at demonising entire communities.
This in turn is leading to fascism rising here as it has in the US. Like AfD in Germany , PVV in Nederlands, Front National in France. This is not a good thing IMO. We need buttons to be able to push to disconnect from that when it gets too bad.
So I don't think this is a bad thing. Though Thierry Breton was a stooge who was mainly interested in promoting his befriended French tech companies yes. Still, even bad people can produce ok things sometimes.
Fight misinformation with verifiable factual information. We should never accept censorship.
> This in turn is leading to fascism rising here as it has in the US. Like AfD in Germany , PVV in Nederlands, Front National in France.
These parties are gaining momentum because the parties in power are completely ignoring the will of the people and are cheerfully destroying Europe as we know it.
> Fight misinformation with verifiable factual information.
This doesn't work. As an example the toilet BS. So many times I've tried to explain that that is such an unimaginable scenario that it's completely unrealistic, let alone warrant the amount of anger against the community. But people don't care. They love being angry at someone, they revel in it. They don't want to know facts, they want to be angry and rile against something.
The same with the migrant thing. They're blamed for everything that's wrong in society. Even though these things are actually the result of decades of externalisation to the poorest in society, driven by right-wing pro-corporate policies. They try to convert that into even more right-wing votes.
> These parties are gaining momentum because the parties in power are completely ignoring the will of the people and are cheerfully destroying Europe as we know it.
It's not the will of the people but of a small group of tiktok influencers that are riling the people up without any actual facts.
It's the same in the US, it's not about facts anymore. Most of the things Trump says are provably false. Yet his followers worship him. It's become a religion. You can't fight that with facts. Nor does this 'will of the people' originate with the actual people. Nobody wakes up and thinks "Hey let's cut healthcare today", "Hey, let's hate on all the gay people that never harmed anyone". They're slowly manipulated into it.
What we have to do is stop the algorithms that try to maximise 'engagement' with hate. And the dark forces that publish all this misinformation.
> On the other side, who the hell would pay for pro EU propaganda?
No one - the EU gets its money from force: taxes on citizens and fines from companies created in more entrepreneurial environments than the EU can produce.
> Seems like we agree: you don't need to advertise when you can force money out of people through VAT and rent-seek your citizens as customers.
Not really. Like, the EU only has the powers given to it by national governments, 1% of VAT is probably too low tbh as there's a bunch of stuff that would be better solved at EU level. The politics around that are pretty tricky though.
EU is great at creating anti EU sentiments. They don't need foreign actors. Chat Control is just one example.