While Thierry Breton, the EU’s often-blundering, certainly vocal and controversial censorship proponent, recently stepped down, his likely replacement, Finland’s Henna Virkkunen, is no free speech champion (Reclaim the Net).
Virkkunen most prominent achievement is the key role she played in creating EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) – a piece of legislation criticised as a “censorship law.”
“Tech enforcer” is how the media refered to Virkkunen. Certainly, that does sound better than, say – “censorship enforcer.” In any case, Virkkunen’s job title is different: executive vice president for tech sovereignty. Nonetheless, the job’s key function remains enforcing the DSA.
Legacy media spin on Virkkunen is that she is an entirely different character from the “flamboyant” Breton. The Finn is presented as a “harmless” technocrat, geared towards sensible things such as promoting the EU’s global competitiveness.
This, in itself, will be quite the task since a key member country, France, recently arrested CEOs of major global platforms. Indeed, the Commission is not distancing itself from France’s “police state” tactics against Telegram, and CEO Pavel Durov. A
One of Virkkunen’s initial duties will be picking up where Breton left off in terms of regulating X and Meta. Certainly, the EU seems to have learned from Russia’s vocabulary, introducing the loaded concept of “digital sovereignty.”
Although stifling major US platforms with fines might support the EU’s attacks on free speech, it’s unclear how the EU’s “global competitiveness” can benefit from tightening the screws on social media.
Worth reading in full.
Click here to read Jonathan Miller’s farewell to Thierry Breton!
