During the last EU election here I even called individual MPs and talked to them, or their office staff, about various subjects. So they're quite accessible.
And it was irrelevant because the EU Parliament isn't a real Parliament, no more than the assembly of representatives in North Korea is. It lacks the so-called right of initiation, meaning that only the EU Commission has the power to change the law. As a consequence nobody who cares about politics bothers going there, except in cases like Farage or Le Pen as a way to get free money they can spend on campaigning against the EU as a concept. Why would anyone who cares about politics spend their time in a body where political ideas are worthless because you aren't allowed to propose them?
Would you like more evidence? The commissioner who made this tweet about the DSA flew over to California and told Musk to obey the new regulations before the EUP had even had a chance to vote on it at all. In a normal government, the legislature has to actually vote to pass new rules before the executive tells people to comply. But the EUP is a rubber stamp designed to grant the surface level appearance of legitimacy to the Commission's decisions, not a body that can actually keep the EU in check, so Breton didn't even bother waiting for it before starting to implement the DSA.
That's how much the EU itself cares about its "Parliament", so why should anyone else care?
We need more examples of this, to show that you can actual reach your representatives.
...which are elected.
So if you want e. g. a right-wing EU commissioner just vote for your local right-wing party. It is that easy.
We’ll see about that when the far right has finished installing election officials wherever it can.
To be fair, both are kind of a shit show.
> Breton received a master's degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from École Supérieure d'Électricité (Supélec, now CentraleSupélec) in 1979 and later graduated from the Institut des hautes études de défense nationale (IHEDN).[6]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thierry_Breton - former VP of Groupe Bull and various other high-ranking telecoms posts there.
Also:
> Breton received world attention after an interview with the Wall Street Journal in 2011 when he reiterated his intention to ban internal email, dubbed as "the pollution of the information age", at Atos within 18 months (known as the zero-email strategy), replacing internal emails by a set of enterprise social networks, enterprise instant messaging, collaborative tools etc..., both being developed inhouse and partially aggregated from other vendors
Really? That's some knot-twisting you have right there.
What will they do if Twitter doesn't comply, ban Twitter?
Twitter is the life-blood of journalists, watch how quickly the whole press will turn against EU anti-Twitter regulation.
Yes. Twitter is a lot less essential than you might think.
It's an irrelevant act on its own weight, but there always comes a straw that breaks the camel's back. Now is just such an absurdly horrible time to do something that might agitate.
No, they'll fine them.
In fact, the law was so well-designed that Iran, Russia and China quickly copied it.
Everyone always forgets that if you create a sharp sword, it still can be wielded against yourself. Abuse of censorship infrastructure is only one autocrat away.
China: I'll bring the hardware!
EU: I'll bring the regulation! - @paulg
The EU is pretty good at regulation. and its easier to get the best from US software and Chinese hardware with sensible regulations in place.
So yes, even though the EU is ridiculed in this joke it actually makes important contributions. Perhaps the only issue is that well-designed regulation is usually so subtle that people don't even recognize the benefits, or take it for granted...
I'm pretty sure Google etc. still know everything there is to know about me.
am i "operating" in zimbabwe, or moldova, or fiji? no.
if twitter stops selling ads to EU entities, closes any offices, and hosts just outside the EU borders it does not have to comply. if for no other reason then the eu loses its power to enforce.
@elonmusk
In Europe, the bird will fly by our rules.
#DSAAs long as he wants to sell ads here, Twitter must comply with our rules and laws and can be cut off from it's (paying) customers otherwise.
always funny how the same people who support working towards open communications in e.g. iran and china by ignoring their laws get mad when somebody suggests this.
American's version of free speech*, as much as Americans want it to be true you can't apply US laws in foreign countries
and yes it can, because the internet reaches pretty much everywhere. as long as there is no server or physical office what can brussels do but scream into the wind about it?
aren't we doing the same thing with iran, belarus, china, other places where we support "American's version" of free speech despite local laws?
That's it, that's all I wanted to say about this.
A form of this system already exists on German Reddit, I believe.
The tech-savvy can continue to use a VPN as usual.
Maybe the NetzDG which is a German law that requires some unconstitutional comments (after being reported) to be hidden in Germany? This was and is highly controversial and applies to all social media.
Basically, I think they should go a step further: you only have access to EU-siloed twitter accounts without actively opting in and being warned.
My general read is that most Europeans would be okay with that (and would not opt-in), and the ones that wouldn't would just use a VPN anyway, so it wouldn't matter
Couldn't Thierry Breton come up with something more suitable to his position?
Free Twitter must look like real threat to corrupted thieves like Von Der Leyen and her Pfizer sponsors with their "fact checkers" promoting fake news and banning scientific facts.