The EU has called on Elon Musk’s Twitter and the US to reflect EU regulations
A WEF panelist at the forum’s annual meeting in Davos, who is also an executive with the European Commission, suggested the United States plans to make hate speech a crime.
Vera Jourova, the vice president for values and transparency at the European Commission, said Tuesday that hate speech will soon stop being protected by the First Amendment’s free speech laws.
Jourova suggested a ban on hate speech will be good for the US. “Illegal hate speech, which you will have soon also in the U.S. I think that we have a strong reason why we have this in the criminal law, we need the platforms to simply work with the language and to identify such cases,” she said.
Another panelist present, US Congressman Seth Moulton (D-MA) jumped in to, at first, seemingly support Jourova’s anti-free speech commentary.
“I think in general the US has a lot to learn in terms of data regulation, internet regulation,” the Massachusetts Democrat added before praising the Europeans for being “way ahead of us” in terms of data regulation.
Rep. Moulton could be seen smirking when Jourova made her anti-American comments. However, the rep. eventually noted he believed “very strongly in free speech,” before saying “there is a healthy concern in the United States that you might be going a little too far.”
European Commission VP Věra Jourová at the WEF:
“Illegal hate speech, which you will have soon also in the U.S. I think that we have a strong reason why we have this in the criminal law.” pic.twitter.com/iLR1MePTYT
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) January 17, 2023
Jourova, representing the European Union, has consistently called on the US to establish hate speech laws. In Davos, the EU vice president threatened to sanction Musk’s Twitter should he continue supporting free speech, regardless of EU online regulations.
“So, after Mr Musk took over Twitter with his ‘freedom of speech absolutism,’ we are the protectors of freedom of speech as well,” Jourova said.
“But at the same time, we cannot accept, for instance, illegal content online and so on. So, our message was clear: we have rules which have to be complied with, otherwise there will be sanctions,” she added.
Source: WEF Panelist Claims United States Will Make Hate Speech Illegal Soon