Because what the EU considers "hate speech" is generally just a statement of a plain truth that the Euroelites do not want publicised.
From The European Conservative
By Lauren Smith
“No Hate Speech Week” is yet another sinister project to silence dissent and unsanctioned opinions.
A belated Happy International Day for Countering Hate Speech, to all who celebrated. Wednesday, June 18th, apparently marked the third ever day against so-called hate speech, as well as the start of the Council of Europe’s No Hate Speech Week.
The theme of this year’s No Hate Speech Week is about as pithy and inspiring as you might imagine: “Enhance legal and non-legal measures against hate speech through a multi-stakeholder approach.” In practice, this means brainstorming the ways in which the European Union can keep control of the narrative, especially on social media.
Council of Europe chief Alain Berset made this clear when he opened the festivities with a speech in Strasbourg yesterday. “Hate speech is not an isolated issue,” he said, “but a part of a deeper challenge—to trust, to truth, to democracy itself.” This might be true according to the topsy-turvy definitions of Eurocratic newspeak. But in reality, free speech is a fundamental part of any democracy. The right for people to say whatever they like, no matter how crude, offensive, or hateful, is crucial for a society to remain open and free.
Berset also declared: “Hate begins with words but does not end there. The Council of Europe has been clear: hate speech and hate crime are not separate problems—they exist on a continuum.”
Once again, he could not be more wrong. Words can never be violent. The only thing they can hurt are feelings. To assert otherwise is not only disingenuous, but also dangerous. Unlike inflicting a real, serious injury on someone, causing offence is entirely subjective. The only person who can prove it is the person who claims to be offended. This is why the definition of hate speech is so vague and noncommittal—and why, in the eyes of the EU, it can be used to apply to anything from criticising the effects of mass migration to arguing that women cannot have penises.
Taking a look at the events being held this week should give you some idea as to what kind of things Brussels regards as hate speech. The Council of Europe will be running over 18 workshops on topics such as “countering hate speech in media and online, sexist hate speech and hate speech targeting Roma and Travellers,” as well as a “study visit” organised by the Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression and Sex Characteristics Unit. In other words, any dissent against the EU’s woke orthodoxy ought to be fought back against, if not outright criminalised.
No Hate Speech week is just the latest strategy in the EU’s censorship crackdown. The main culprit is the Digital Services Act (DSA), the draconian piece of legislation that polices ‘harmful content’ online. According to the DSA, even interviewing a former president of the United States could constitute hate speech. This was the conclusion last year of Thierry Breton, the then European Commissioner in charge of enforcing the DSA. In the run-up to the U.S. presidential elections, Breton warned that Musk livestreaming an interview with Donald Trump on X could violate EU law on spreading “harmful content.”
The idea that merely giving air time to a presidential candidate might be so hateful as to break the law is beyond reason. But the EU has been waging a spiteful war against Musk, a self-professed free-speech absolutist. Since 2023, the European Commission has been investigating his social-media platform, due to Musk’s commitment to allowing users to post virtually whatever they want. The EU alleged that X failed to comply with the DSA. Falling foul of the DSA could technically see X banned across Europe, but it is more likely that Musk will face a fine of somewhere around $1 billion.
The EU’s nonsensical war against hate speech is not just against free-speech-supporting individuals like Musk. It is systematic. As a recent report from MCC Brussels found, the EU is spending an incredible €649 million of taxpayers’ money on “researching” and countering hate speech and disinformation. The report’s author, Dr. Norman Lewis, points out that the money spent on these 349 projects is 31% more than what the EU spends on transnational cancer research. One of the most concerning projects identified in the report is the use of AI systems to monitor and censor ‘problematic’ content, as well as “training” users, especially young people, to identify, counter, and report hate speech wherever they see it. This sounds remarkably like an attempt to brainwash Europe’s youth into policing their own and others’ opinions.
It could not be clearer that the EU’s campaign against hate speech is really an attack on all speech. It sees freedom of speech as one of the most severe threats to disseminating its globalist, identitarian messaging. Hence why it feels to need to construct a vast censorship apparatus in order to crush dissenting opinions wherever they might pop up. No Hate Speech Week might be cast in vague, fluffy terms about protecting democracy and combatting discrimination. But as one report discovered, the EU’s censorship laws are not at all effective in even stopping hate speech. Somewhere between 87.5% and 99.7% of posts removed on social-medial platforms under the DSA were completely legal. The only ‘crime’ committed by these users was to post something offensive, rude, or off-colour.
Brussels’s censorship crackdown is far more about control than it is about making the world, online or offline, a safer place. If the EU really wanted to counter hate, it would be encouraging more speech, not less. The only way to “unlearn hate, protect truth, and strengthen democracy”, in the words of Alain Berset, is to let the most controversial and spiteful opinions be broadcast in the open and thoroughly debunked. Silencing them will only allow hate to fester and democracy to wither.
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