Lucia Y retweetledi
The EU’s Double Standards and Manufactured Outrage: Censorship Under the Guise of Regulation
Current EU policy reveals a profound contradiction between its rhetorical commitment to freedom of expression and its actual practice of imposing sanctions.
While the German Federal Constitutional Court emphasizes that even "unsettling" or "manifestly false" opinions are protected under the umbrella of freedom of speech, the EU systematically bypasses these protections. It summarily declares dissenting voices (as in the case of Jacques Baud) to be "hybrid threats" or "disinformation" in order to make them legally vulnerable and to silence them.
The "Censorship-Industrial Complex": Through massive state funding of organizations such as HateAid, the Federal Republic of Germany and the EU are engaging in the functional privatization of censorship. These NGOs act as an extended arm of the state, shifting the boundaries of free speech without any direct democratic oversight—an interference that the U.S. is now logically sanctioning as politically motivated influence-peddling. It should not end there; "Hessen gegen Hetze" (Hesse Against Hate) would be a worthy next target.
The EU justifies its sanctions against Alisher Usmanov, among others, by claiming that as the owner of Kommersant, he is liable for a guest op-ed written by Dmitry Medvedev. In European media law, the separation of ownership and editorial staff is defended as the "Holy Grail" of press freedom. An owner has to abstain from interfering in editorial content and journalistic freedeom.
Yet, here, "factual control" is merely asserted. By doing so, the EU turns the owner into a censor: to avoid sanctions, an owner would have to actively prevent politically unpopular texts from appearing. This is the exact "curtailment of the freedom of the editorial staff" that the EU accuses Usmanov of in its own justification for the sanctions—a classic circular argument.
Selective Sovereignty: The EU Commission insists on its "regulatory autonomy" (e.g., regarding the DSA) but denies the United States the same sovereign right when the U.S. imposes travel restrictions on former EU officials like Thierry Breton, whom they view as a threat to their own constitutional values (Free Speech).
While the EU imposes draconian economic sanctions on Russian media owners, it portrays itself as a victim of "unjustified measures" when its own bureaucrats face only a travel ban. This exposes a system in which freedom of speech only applies to those who support the prevailing consensus.
I applaud the United States for taking this step and hope that more will follow. On D-Day, standing in Normandy next to the then-Commanding General of the 82nd Airborne Division, I said to him regarding the matter of Freedom (of speech): "Perhaps you Americans will have to liberate us a second time."
Joachim Nikolaus Steinhöfel, Christmas 2025
English
