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Thierry Breton, Commissioner for Internal Market of the European Union, has written a 'friendly' letter to the leadership and ownership of
XTwitter:((The commission has called this letter "neither co-ordinated or agreed", for whatever that means.))
Bruce Daisely, the pre-Musk Twitter VP for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, writes in the UK's Guardian that:
The London Met Chief Commissioner had an interview last week, where he said:
I'd like to summarize the rest of the video -- allegedly he or the interviewer highlighted Musk specifically -- but for some reason the underlying video has disappeared. I'm sure Sky News pulled the video without any government action being involved, yepyepyep.
apropos of nothing
A Washington Post journalist asks the White House: [edited for readability]
Given the urgency here, I'm sure that they have published urgent fact-checking on things like... *checks transcript* Trump's hilariously false claims about the harms caused by the Fukushima Nuclear Accident, right?... Right?
No, that's not what they mean by misinformation or disinformation, just like the people calling GOP investigations into the "Global Alliance for Responsible Media" 'conspiracy theories' didn't mean that like its clear and prominent existence or self-admitted tooling or target matters. The line between 'allegedly' and 'stated in public' is less a distinction and more just overlap.
There's a fun story here, where despite all this, free speech still works, and to some extent that's likely to keep being the case. Even if you end up having to exfiltrate employees from certain countries, there's VPNs for now and StarLink in the future, and one not-quite-stated explicitly side effect of StarLink is that Musk will probably end up with a mini-Cloudflare, too. (though, uh, there's another possible solution to that).
But there's a more morbid one where it's come to this point. There aren't any detailed reports behind Musk's claims that "The European Commission offered 𝕏 an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us". Musk has implied at length that GARM used 'Brand Safety' as a proxy for political positions, but there aren't specific claims in his lawsuit. There's no explanation how major industry metrics whoopsididdled the official number there for months on end. Barring a million Congressional subpeonas that aren't going to happen and wouldn't be answered fully even if they did, it's impossible to tell the difference between GARM's membership all acting independently in a specific way, and someone in power in some regulating state made a few phone calls?
Is this the one place all these forces were necessary? Or is it unusual only in its visibility, as a result of people not playing along?
Kind of funny coming from a government elected by 33% of the populace.
I've seen conservatives, liberals, leftists, and rightists all make this argument about some form of election where they've lost as some form of pushback, and here's the thing. If you don't vote, and you have a free and open ballot, you're saying you're fine with any option that wins. Not voting is an endorsement of the current order, whomever ends up the winner.
I have far more respect for somebody who shows up, and even just spoils their ballot or writes in something off the wall than somebody who isn't part of the process at all, then tries to act like it's not legitimate. Those who show up are the ones who create the government. You can be upset if your preference loses and be upset with the choices made of course.
But non-voters, especially ones who act as if they're above it all are silly, especially when the reality most of the 67% who didn't vote aren't doing it for some noble reason, but because they don't care, and no, they wouldn't care even if the perfect politician who you think should be in charge showed up either (I've said the same thing to my fellow lefties about Bernie).
Not engaging with the system is not an endorsement of the current system. Suppose in the next election, there was only 10% turnout. Would you consider that to be a ringing endorsement of the process? Do you think politicians would stay the course, or would they attempt to win the votes of that nonvoting 90%? Do you apply this same logic to markets? Does dismal sales actually mean that the product is fine, and that nothing should change?
Plus one vote never changed anything.
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They got 33.7% of the votes of people who did vote. The reason they won so many seats is tory voters going for reform out of frustration.
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The UK does not have a free and open ballot if what you want to vote for runs into restrictions on speech. It makes it very difficult for candidates to legally advertise their political position, or for you to campaign for it. In the past, it was possible to get elected from prison, but the Representation of the People Act 1981 put a stop to that. Liberal Democracy depends on a tightly interlocking system of rights to enable free elections. You don't get to pick and choose what parts you have. Removing one element can break a whole lot more.
Spoiling your secret ballot is an option. That's what I did back when de facto suppression of anti-lockdown dissidents meant I had no anti-lockdown candidates to vote for. But those weren't free and open elections, since public assembly by those expressing my favoured political views was criminalized.
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Funny you say that, because I've seen conservatives, liberals, leftists, and rightists all make this argument.
The legitimacy of the system is derived from people participating in it, that's where all the "come on, vote, even if it's just to spoil the ballot" thing is coming from, and precisely why people refuse to vote, and precisely why others get upset with them. Also, the idea of someone voting to spoil getting respect died a horrible death with Trump and Brexit. If you actually pick a non-sanctioned option on the "free and open" ballot, a ton of shit will be dropped on you, and steps will be taken to ensure you will not be able to do it again.
Not voting is not an endorsement, it's quite obviously the opposite, though it may express that whoever wins will be just as bad as the other guy. The police under the Tories were already going after people for spicy memes, after all.
So, how low does turnout have to get before the system becomes so illegitimate it can't stay solvent, if not 33%? 20%? 10%? 5%? At which point do you predict the People will throw their hands up and say "you know what, we never voted for any of those guys, time to wreck shit"?
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Apparently Thierry Breton was freelancing when he sent this letter and the European Commission has said they do not approve the message: https://www.ft.com/content/09cf4713-7199-4e47-a373-ed5de61c2afa
Locked to subscribers.
Archive link here. I'll caveat that "The timing and the wording of the letter were neither co-ordinated or agreed with the president nor with the [commissioners]," or "On Tuesday the European Commission denied that Breton had approval from its president Ursula von der Leyen to send the letter." are much more limited phrases.
I think I'd read that as "Yes, we are aware our trial balloon went over like lead"
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There are no safeguards in the UK system. The people are at the sole mercy of a 325+1 majority of 650 MPs, who can do everything and pass anything with impunity and without restriction. They could rule that everyone with red hair would be executed tomorrow and - provided they were willing to abolish the House of Lords in the same act (something everyone seems to agree they can do) - they could.
Why wouldn't the House of Lords need to pass a bill to abolish the House of Lords when they need to pass every other bill?
It would, but it’s constitutionally considered impossible in practice that they could vote against such a bill, it would be like the king vetoing it.
Why would it be impossible?
Because since the late 19th century at the latest, the other parts of the triumvirate (Lords and monarch) have accepted in practice that they’ve lost all power and must defer to the democratically elected chamber on everything of great import. If you’re asking if there’s any technical reason, then the answer is no, the same way there’s no technical reason why the king can’t just veto any law he doesn’t like or appoint some random person prime minister (a role which itself has no constitutional basis and is entirely informal).
You might realise at this stage that the British system is completely untested since the 17th century and held together solely by collective agreement on its base principles, but it is what it is.
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I wonder why the UK even bothers with a bicameral legislature if one of the halves is expected to just rubber stamp everything the other does. Seems silly to me, but I guess it's not my country so it doesn't much matter what I think.
Inertia and tradition like many things.
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Canada has a similar setup, where the Senate very rarely tosses a bill out. As part of my job, I have read tons of transcripts of debates over various bills, especially subcommittee ones where they get down to the nitty-gritty.
The Senate debates have WAY less political grandstanding and partisan antics. They seem far better at articulating what they are trying to accomplish and whether that lines up with the proposed law. They'll often send the bill back with modifications, and even without those the discussions on what they are trying to do are useful for interpreting the law in the trenches.
Whether this service is worth the costs and downsides of the Senate, I'm not sure, and I have no idea if the UK works similarly. But I've definitely gotten some use out of them.
Each province has eliminated its upper house though, and the Conservatives did try to kill it by not appointing any Senators. They'd probably have gotten rid of it had they been able, but it would require an unlikely constitutional amendment.
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For the same reasons the US still has a Congress (since in practice it’s the bureaucrats who make the laws there).
We'll see how that goes now with Chevron deference no longer being the law of the land.
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UK law doesn't require that speech isn't used to spread hatred. I am, for now, permitted to spread my hatred of onions as far and wide as I want. Their texture is disgusting and they make everything you put them in taste the same. But also, the UK does not have free speech regardless. The law is asymmetrical. Those to the right of the mainstream are prohibited from voicing their hatreds, while those to the left of the mainstream are allowed to rant about "zionists" and the like all they want.
Which is the inherent problem with the idea of criminalizing spreading hatred. Which hatreds? Hatred of Russia, for daring to invade Ukraine? Hatred of the unvaccinated and so-called granny killers? Hatred of the Far-Right? These are all forms of hatred that have been deliberately spread by the government over the last few years. Why are these forms of hatred not just allowed but endorsed? That's a rhetorical question, because the answer is too obvious.
The result is that restrictions on spreading hatred are always used to promote certain political views while suppressing others. That's not a slight tweak to make freedom of speech all nice and cuddly. Restrictions on hate speech instead directly attack free speech's common purposes: Democratic participation, truth-seeking, and checking power.
I don’t like onion. It’s coarse and rough and irritating, and it gets everywhere.
Not like leek... With leek, everything's soft... and smooth...
I know posting memes in the culture war thread probably isn't great, but I do really appreciate seeing memes from "my time". None of whatever the fuck kids these days are meming. It makes me feel strongly that this is my in-group.
Anyways, here are the lyrics to Ievan polkka so you can sing along: https://youtube.com/watch?v=d0FV3_i-6WU?si=pU4i_Oh-loSfzoPS
Well, not to burst your bubble, but the leekspin meme is something I remember from my early school years, and it's just because I was an extremely online child that I recall it.
I'm mildly aware of more... age-appropriate? memes but since I've migrated off reddit and don't use TikTok, I don't see most of them. I think my brain is actually healing. Heck, I used to find this funny, now I barely respond to it. (But the lobster remains unacceptable.)
Scratch that, I find dad jokes funny now, maybe I'm not so much healing as morphing. "Hi morphing, I'm dad."
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...and if you want to understand what the lyrics actually say, go here. (They're in heavy Savo dialect of Finnish, even I wasn't quite sure of all the words even though I come from an adjacent region.)
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It is ironic that a “law” enforcement officer is so clearly overstepping customary law. UK law doesn’t apply to non UK citizens outside of the UK as the UK is not sovereign in those areas. Would the UK be comfortable with China exercising that power? The US? The whole concept is absurd prima facie as you could have country A make it illegal to do X and country B make it illegal to do not X. I hope that LEO is stripped naked, paraded through the streets, and then is flogged for proposing this draconian and unworkable legal system.
I think that pales in comparison to the absurdity of a EU commissioner thinking he has the power to involve himself in a conversation between two American citizens about an American matter. All because some Europeans may be listening.
In saner times this would actually be a diplomatic incident, but now it's just the richest man in the world shitposting about people impotently demanding he stops shitposting.
I do get a distinct feeling the foxes are losing their grip and panicking a little bit.
I see someone also reads N.S. Lyons.
I have to admit, the foxes versus lions lens was actually very helpful. Explains a lot of what's going on.
No, just Machiavelli.
Did he say anything similar about our current situation?
https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/britains-foxes-are-beset-by-wolves
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I think characterising it as jocks vs. nerds wasn't quite accurate. Jocks can take the fox side, and nerds can take the lion side. The point is "do you play the group-selection game, or the individual-selection game?".
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There's been EU elections recently, so the Commission gets to appoint new people, and they are all jockeying. Thierry Breton wants to keep his post and is acting all tough. He wants to position himself as someone who isn't afraid of the Americans.
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Why leave out the part where Musk replied to Breton and told him to go fuck his own face?
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1823076043017630114
My admiration for the guy keeps increasing.
There was a post recently about how Elon is a "reply guy" (meaning not really creating imaginative content and more just reposting and adding minimal commentary).
And it's true.
And yet, the bluntest, least original things can be funny if you have the right target.
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It's a very funny literalization of "fuck you money", but I've been trying to narrow down focus when writing these posts.
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"Find out who that was."
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I'm not sure I understand this last bit. How exactly is the London Met going to "come after" Elon Musk? Or is this some weak-sauce "we'll charge him with a crime if he ever comes here"?
He means “further afield” than the streets where the riots were happening, not out of the country. Only the US is powerful enough to extradite people for crimes they committed abroad (as with Mike Lynch or the LIBOR traders).
Yeah, he was asked specifically about Elon and pivoted to talking about "keyboard warriors" in general. People just ran with it because he didn't explicitly admit there was little he could do.
Which would be accurate but kind of unproductive and humiliating when you're trying to discipline the kids who're still gonna be in school next semester.
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That doesn’t make sense. The first limb specified “in this country.” The next specified “further afield.” The clear implication is outside of this country.
If you were merely talking about crimes IRL on the streets, you wouldn’t specify in the first limb “in this country.”
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Theoretically, the UK has pretty expansive options for trying someone in absentia, often on expedited means. It would be possible to issue 'notice' that was never possible to read, find Musk guilty in a day, and then set a whole mess of fees and penalties after his accounts, or even use it as a previous conviction in a more serious claim later against either Musk or Twitter's UK branch.
But that's only a little more likely than WhiningCoil's "Harris okays extradition of a US citizen for yucks" option.
It's a threat to be a threat to everyone else; if the Met police are willing to risk US retribution, they're absolutely going to fuck over some nobody in the EU.
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I mean, England can request the extradition of US citizens all they want, and it makes foreign travel much more complicated for them.
It would be phenomenally stupid to demand the extradition of citizens of your security guarantor over a crime which isn't illegal in that country, so you have to expect that the UK foreign ministry will stop things from getting to that point. One furthermore has to expect that even a Kamala Harris administration won't extradite a US citizen over hate speech. But the met can make foreign travel much more complicated all the same.
"demand" implies one party trying to secure something from an unwilling second party. What we have already seen a number of times is "friendly" nations laundering hostile actions against their own disfavored citizens through their allies. I'd agree that it's unlikely to look like an extradition order against Musk for hate speech, but the federal government offering prompt cooperation on trumped-up charges or absurd fines targeting central examples of first-amendment-protected speech seems probable, if it hasn't happened already.
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I thought the same thing about how Jan 6 protestors would be treated given all the "fiery but mostly peaceful" protest all summer. Then they started sending grandmas who got waved through to pound me in the ass prison, and everyone went "Duh, obviously this was going to happen to regime enemies." Now I expect much the same. Everyone will act like there is no way Kamala would allow the UK to extradite Elon for hate speech, until she fucking does, and then they'll act like it was obvious and Elon was a moron for going against the regime.
There’s several relevant differences. To start with, the J6 protestors committed actual minor crimes in a high profile way, Elon hasn’t done anything illegal here. Secondly, Elon is the richest man in the world. Thirdly, the political blowback from extraditing someone for hate speech would be intense, while most Americans agreed the J6 protestors should get the book thrown at them at the time.
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I can't imagine a circumstance where the Harris government has it out Elon bad enough to extradite him to the UK for hate speech where it doesn't just kill him. Cleaner and easier that way
Because she can get rid of an enemy without the blowback of being guilty of doing the deed herself. Julian Assange faces much the same — he’s charged in the USA so Britain can simply say “he’s accused of terrorism of course we’re sending him to America if he leaves the embassy. If they try him themselves he can be sympathetic to the public causing people to not like the regime as much.
Britain didn't really care that much about Assange, so it's not a great analogy.
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There’s less to gain from a political killing. Being cooperative with extradition has a chance of being accepted as the ‘new normal’ and so an effective deterrent in future, political killings can’t be scaled up for every domestic enemy unless you want to bring things to a crisis.
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I don't think it's likely at all, but more for internal legal reasons : we've had dumber. Sometimes messy is the point.
are wide ranging parole conditions that look to violate 1st amendment rights unconstitutional? i found united states vs chaker which the ACLU/Cato/EFF joined but the court dodged the constitutional question. https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-chaker-2
It... depends. The big SCOTUS decision on the matter is Puckingham (cw: sexual assault of a child), where a near-blanket ban on social media or website use by convicted sex offenders who had served their sentence was not compatible with the First Amendment, and instead such bans must be narrowly tailored. While SCOTUS itself has not brought this to cover parolees as well, some circuit courts of appeals have. But those restrictions had to be extremely broad before the courts considered them unconstitutional; there is a general rule that parolees have highly restricted rights in general.
((Pretrial release, without a conviction, is even messier, not least of all because such matters are hard to contest before they are mooted.))
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That all seems very wacky. Its not immediately clear in that wiki why anyone would want to do all of that.
Nakoula was a pretty generic grifter, but this happened right before President Obama's reelection. Having someone local to act on as an utmost priority meant that Benghazi was a Solved Problem in November 2012; it was only well after the election that anyone could start unraveling the loose threads.
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My understanding is that the Commissioner was directing his comment generally at people overseas breaching UK's online laws regarding hate speech and incitement. Which seems like massive overreach and ultimately an empty threat.
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