The European Commission will “analyse” whether a live conversation on the X social media platform between Alice Weidel, the co-leader of German right-wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party, and X owner Elon Musk is in breach of the EU’s platform rules, a spokesperson said.
Weidel will be Musk’s guest in a discussion forum on X on Thursday, January 9th, and the fact that the Commission declared it necessary to preemptively state that it would “analyse” the conversation is another sign of the Brussels Eurocrats’ deep disdain not just for X but for freedom of speech itself. Under Musk, X has transformed into a platform that encourages free speech and rejects censorship—in contrast with other media platforms that regularly block content and delete accounts for purely political purposes.
The South African American billionaire has made a lot of enemies in liberal circles by publicly declaring his support for right-wing, patriotic politicians, such as Donald Trump, and parties like the AfD, which is currently in second place in opinion polls, one-and-a-half months before the German national elections.
Věra Jourová, the EU’s former Commission Vice President, has called Musk a “promoter of evil.”
Musk refused to sign the EU’s “voluntary” anti-disinformation pact like other social media giants and unsurprisingly, Brussels launched an investigation against X in 2023—the first against a major online platform—establishing that the platform breached elements of the so-called Digital Services Act (DSA). Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton even threatened Musk with further “legal repercussions” if he fails to censor Donald Trump and other political figures deemed to engage in “hate speech.”
In July of last year, Musk said that the Commission had offered X an illegal secret deal, proposing to the platform that if it “quietly censored speech without telling anyone,” they would not be fined. Musk said that while other platforms accepted the deal, X did not.
It is no wonder Brussels has its eye on X again and is seeking revenge.
The conversation between Musk and Weidel on Thursday will provide an opportunity for the German politician to introduce herself on the global political stage, at a time when German mainstream media spread disinformation about her party, and the publicly funded media refuse to invite her to a live election debate between the leaders of the parties with the highest support.
The Commission’s decision to publicly state that it would examine Thursday’s conversation is telling in itself, and poses the question: why does Brussels only worry about its rules being broken when right-wing parties and free speech advocates are involved?
Former commissioner Thierry Breton, one of the most authoritarian figures in Europe, got in on the act, too. In a social media post, the Frenchman warned Alice Weidel that she would gain “a significant and valuable advantage” over her political rivals, because Musk has 210 million followers on his X account. Breton also warned Musk that he “should, once again, fully respect all its obligations under our EU law.”
Alice Weidel was quick to react, and called the “ex-censorship commissioner’s” threat a “frontal attack on the freedom of expression.”
