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Pressure mounts on EU to use legal weapons against Musk’s interference
(www.politico.eu)
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this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2025
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What is it to study? He's already said that he supports the nazis, and it is clear that he uses his twitter as his personal billboard.
There's nothing else to consider. Twitter should be banned from Europe until the nazi controlling it loses its control over it (hopefully in a pemanent way).
Right, but what in what you've said is illegal?
Supporting nazism is quite illegal in many places. In Germany for sure.
Clearly not if the far right party exists in Germany and their leaders aren’t being sent to jail. In the eyes of German law the AfD are not nazi enough to be illegal.
I don't know if these anti Nazi laws have ever been enforced in a rigorous manner. And most politicians are too afraid of doing it because the Nazis have growing support by the people. I'm pretty sure they could do more to fight the afd legally. But then again, they could also do more to satisfy voters, so they don't vote for extremist. Both is never going to happen.
It is currently under legal review, though unfortunately caught up in Realpolitik and unlikely to go anywhere due to the government disbanding.
Fact is the center-right always has a bullshit reason to sit on their hands. They stopped the NPD review years ago saying they aren't popular enough to be a threat. Now with AfD they say they're too popular to be banned.
Institutions and laws are meaningless if they aren't used as intended.
Germany bans certain symbols, including the Nazi swastika, the Communist hammer and sickle, and the Hamas flag.
But it does not otherwise ban support of those organizations/ideologies.
The hammer and sickle is not prohibited at all lol, or else the DKP would be banned
Of course they are banned. There is a long list with organisations and groups that were banned since 1951. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_in_Deutschland_verbotener_rechtsextremer_Organisationen
Not only symbols are prohibited. Extreme-Right / Facist / Nazis writings, music, images, videos, etc. are also banned.
Holocaust denial is forbidden. Historical relativism in relation to the Second World War is prohibited. etc.
Yes, the organizations themselves are banned.
Expressing support for them is not banned, unless accompanied by those symbols.
Admittedly, it is not enforced often enough and hard enough, but in general this falls under criminal organisations law.
We're talking about twitter as a company and platform, not twitter users.
Foreign election interference is generally illegal. Which is why it happens in back channels and under the table. He has openly declared his intent to do so though. That justifies blocking X and any source of funding Musk can bring into those countries. Hell it justifies an interpol warrant.
Nothing. IF his personal billboard was used to post kitten gifs.
But since his personal billboard is used to promote nazism during an election and is big enough to be able to influence the results of the elections by simply filtering that people can see on it to be what he wants, I'd say that he is interfering in a democratic election, which is a crime in democratic countries.
Have you actually read the article?
“Elon Musk chatting with AfD leader Alice Weidel on X is covered by freedom of expression. His algorithmic manipulation, [which] is intentionally flooding German X timelines with far-right propaganda and drowning out progressive content, is not.”
I'm pretty sure the second half is covered by freedom of expression too.
The people saying "election interference" are probably closest to having something real to pin on him, but circulation of propaganda is not election interference. Buying votes like he was doing is the US is, but he's not doing that here. Violating campaign or party donation rules would be, but I'm not aware of him doing that either.
You need an actual crime.
what you're saying is LITERALLY false. it's election interference in germany. his main actions would be covered in Manipulation campaigns in the information space or disinformation campaigns, but you could even make a case it's a hybrid threat. He'll probably also indirectly sponsor them monetarily if possible, which should also be illegal.
EITHER way, the one of the first three actions are all easily observed from the megalomaniac's behavior.
If you are trying to argue the courts won't be able to take action before he gets the AfD in power, sure. Is a law a law if it ain't enforced? No, I agree there.
I am pretty sure that you are just another ignorant USian without the foggiest clue about how laws works outside of your ridiculous country.
I think this is the right question. If they can show something he has done is illegal then take it to court. I can't stand the guy and hope they can nail him if he's broken the law.
There is a separate issue here which is whether regulations need to change because it's not appropriate to have media in the hands of individuals or big corporations. Yet this has been acceptable to politicians when it was Rupert Murdoch, or Silvio Berlusconi or various other media barons - why is Musk any different? Politicians have spent decades cosying up to such media barons and letting them have power over democracies.
The whole system needs to be changed - this is not just about one billionaire, it's all of them and their use of the media to control the public discourse.
That is one avenue. But there's no time for that. So. Unless you're just going to get mowed down in the street by an idiot techbro with more money than sense who's high on some toxic meth/ket drug because you're so locked into the way we did things in the 1800s, you'll need to think of something.
Aaaaaaannnnd - Go.
Then make it legal