Speech On the Continent

By: Spiro N. Kass

Elon Musk’s social media platform X, perennially in the news, was recently raided at its Paris headquarters by French police, who are investigating the company. The authorities allege X’s “complicity” in controversial content generated by Grok, the company’s AI chatbot. Grok reportedly generates sexualized AI-generated images of real people, known as “deepfakes,” as well as Holocaust denial talking points. The latter can be considered a crime in France, and some French government ministers have described Grok’s activity as “manifestly illicit.”

It’s not just France looking into X at the moment – the European Union police force Europol and two British watchdogs/regulators are also on the case. The investigations also deal with algorithm manipulation and concerns that X could be used for foreign interference in European politics.

AI-generated photo and video content has had an increasingly large presence online. Sexualized deepfakes portraying real people have alarmed governments across the world. British Secretary of Technology Liz Kendall said that victims of deepfakes “will not accept any delay” in investigating the platform. Northern Irish politician Cara Hunter announced she was quitting X last month after being disappointed with the lack of protection for women online. Hunter had previously been “targeted” by a deepfake.

These investigations come at a time when media companies are growing increasingly wary of state power. Elon Musk himself has not responded extensively to the investigations but, taking to X, he referred to the actions of the French government as a “political attack,” characterizing the Labor government as wanting “any excuse for censorship.” X itself, in a more detailed response, said the raid “circumvents due process” and is “an abusive act of law enforcement theater.”

“Today’s staged raid reinforces our conviction that this investigation distorts French law, circumvents due process, and endangers free speech… We will not be intimidated by the actions of French judicial authorities today,” said the company.

The founder of the messaging app Telegram, Pavel Durov, also weighed in, criticizing the French actions, labeling France “not a free country.” Durov himself was arrested in France for an alleged lack of moderation on Telegram but was let go after the platform agreed to share its users’ data with the authorities if they have search warrants or “other legal requests.”

There has been heightened attention to alleged oversteps of censorship in Europe. Soon into Trump’s second term, at the Munich Security Conference, Vice President J.D. Vance lambasted the Europeans. “In Britain and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat,” he said.

What is going on here?

The X fiasco reflects a profound divergence in Western liberalism. It pits free speech, a foundation of American culture, against the contemporary European way of treating speech. On one side, you have the “anything goes” crowd – tech entrepreneurs, like Elon Musk, along with a strange American folk cult (I think they call themselves Libertarians). It’s clear that not everything can reasonably go, though.  On the other, we have the Europeans and Brits, whose attitudes regarding speech are a far cry from those of the old English liberals. It is illegal in Britain to “cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety” to someone online.

 As an American (and not to say this doesn’t happen at all in the US), this strikes me as ridiculous. It’s not just putatively right-wing speech being crushed, though – the amount of arrests related to pro-Palestine protests have been staggering. Have the Brits not read their John Locke? And don’t the British police have anything better to do? Like, maybe, go after theft in London?

Notwithstanding my less than 100% trust in the Trump administration’s commitment to free speech, Vance’s remarks hit the Europeans in a vulnerable position in the speech. You have to notice that. Most Americans are shocked to hear about the legalism surrounding speech in Europe, especially Britain. To Americans, it’s a completely foreign notion that a police officer could show up at your door over a Tweet, for example. Could it be that this fundamental difference in outlook will become a defining fault line of America-Europe relations in the years to come? It certainly seems to be shaping up that way.

It’s also worth considering how technology has completely shifted the debate around what speech even is. If we went back to the 1970s and told people that, in the future, anyone could go online and generate hyper-realistic pornography featuring anyone they know at any time and post it for the world to see, I think their brains might quite literally melt. There is also the issue of Grok-generated explicit images of children, which is unacceptable in any moderately civilized society. The Founding Fathers did not have AI child pornography in mind when drafting the Bill of Rights.

As for John Locke, he would probably have abhorred sexual deepfakes of high school teachers being posted online. That’s just a hunch, though…

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Spiro N. Kass lives in Europe and studies politics and international relations.

Comments 21

  1. AI is leaving its mark. As a CFE I can attest that Fraud has grown leaps and bounds with the assistance of AI.

    I hope that no one trusts emails or anything internet related because things can be very manipulated to look like “the real thing”.

    Unfortunately society has taken the easy way and AI had become the tool of the road most traveled.

  2. Free Speech; It doesn’t exist. You mention Locke and the he had the idea of the social contract, where we all share responsibility. Your dad wrote about Jimmy DiLeo D (How you doin’). Vance is R (Theil), Trump is MAGA (Israel), Just like Sleepy Joe Biden was D (CHINA!). These punks take money from chooches like Musk and Theil and Israel and bend over for them and shower them with OUR money!

    The social contract has been broken by the greed which was always present, but that the basic decency of the people and our leaders kept somewhat in check. There are no guardrails anymore. Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden, and now Trump and again, bigger sand more corrupt than ever. We murder women, children, blow up schools and hospitals with our “friends” the Israelis, who have essentially led us into hell in Iran.

    As JK reminded me, we do not live in a Democracy. We live in a Republic. We have elected representative who make decisions on our behalf. The problem is everything, and virtually everyone is owned by an oligarch or corporation. All of our leaders are bought and paid for.

    This is how we are engaged in bullshit wars which only serve to damage our prestige and our wallets. This is why the young generation is having so much trouble, all of the money is being sucked up by the oligarchs. They own the student loans, that is why you cannot lose them in bankruptcy. They own everything and their fortunes are such that with a phone call to an Epstein, they can have a young girl feed them grapes while young boys do perverted things.

    Biden had the LLC’s and took money from CHINA! And Ukraine. Trump is owned by the Edelsons, the Arab Sheiks, Oil companies, Israel. They have all his financial records and copious pictures and video of him en flagrante, dong disgusting things. Only this Epstein thing doesn’t stoop at one guy. It’s an international network of spies, cheats, and snitches, owned by the Davos crowd, Our Deep state, oligarchs and the CIA and Mossad.

    The Social contract, the moral conscience which kept somewhat semblance of order is gone. The oligarchs own the media. With Palentir and the Patriot Act, they are watching everything we do, listening to everything we say. You make a cogent argument about how the oligarchs are rat fucking us left and right, or about Israel, and there are legions of bots on Twitter, X, to call you any manner of disgusting names and hurl baseless accusations.

    This oligarchs fund “think tanks”, which you will probably work for. They get people like Victor Davos Hansen to peddle the party line. Hate Muslims, hate who we tell you too. They prop up this vision of Antifa, who are funded by other oligarchs, and rile up stupid people.

    Now the Iranians are mocking our president. Treating him as he deserves to be treated, as a clown. He is a clown and we elected him, because Biden was a clown, and Harris was a corporate stooge and neither could make one move without asking the donors.

    It was said on a podcast that Gorbachev proposed total nuclear disarmament when they were negotiating SALT II. Reagan said he had to take it back to his people. They said no.

    1. Bravo, Robert. Well stated. We are run by a mega cartel of world wide crooks, pimps, child molesters, drug dealers, etc.
      The only good thing about this war will be the massive November losses by GOP across the nation. Both Senate and House will be Dem/Woke controlled. Then we have stalemate for the final 2 years, which to me is perfect. Less damage to us citizens and country.
      Remember: voters vote their pocket books. It ain’t looking good to being a GOPer.

      1. Your vision is extremely shortsighted. With the kind of momentum you’re talking about, in just a little over 2 years, you’ll also have a progressive president, and it will be 1917 again – only in this country – not Russia.

      2. Doc, I used to love listening to Bob Brinker on WRKO in Boston and WLS in Chicago. He always said that we have the best government money can buy and the best thing the public can hope for is a split government and the resultant gridlock that is causes as they can’t make any stupid laws to hurt bus if they don’t hold all the levers of power.

        Bob never recommended buying Amazon stock. Some would say he missed the bus on thats one. Only I came to understand that Amazon violated all sound business principles and our government essentially let them sell dollar bills for 99 cents to capture market share in sector after sector. They never turned a profit, yet their stock kept zooming. That is America now. We create nothing novel, we just sponge off of anyone who isnt in on the scam.
        It barely matters who is POTUS anymore. Tampons in the bathrooms aside and men in dresses in the military, would president Brown Sugar have been talked into this Iraq shit show? I seriously doubt it.

      3. Biden’s presidency was a window into this country’s future.
        Fortunately, patriotic Americans saw the problems and shut most of it down.
        You want a representative government that gets paid to maintain a certain status quo?
        To hope that they don’t do anything harmful to the country isn’t much of a plan.
        If you’re not moving forward, you are falling behind.
        When did exceptionalism become a bad word? Why can’t there be winners and losers?
        Why should the guy who is leaning on his shovel next to me get paid the same as me, who is actually doing the digging? Why are we forced through our taxes to give money to people who have no desire to pull themselves out of poverty and then bitch because they can’t use their SNAP for sugary snacks and lottery tickets? What happened to giving to charity for the needy? Oh, that’s right; they became NGOs who became rich by gaming the system.
        If you haven’t been paying attention, high profile liberals have publicly stated that, if they regain the levers of power, conservatives-especially MAGA conservatives-will be retaliated against and some will go to jail. How does that happen in a constitutional republic? By delegating your political power to chameleon shysters who trick you into voting for them and then doing the exact opposite when they are elected. There are so many Democrats running for Republican positions anymore that up is down and down is up. It’s a crap shoot.
        Think about it. Open borders. No ICE or CBP. Defund the police. Cashless bail. Soros prosecutors. State governments that literally flaunts federal law. Falsified crime data based upon nuanced language. Children who can’t read, write or do basic math.
        Yeah, what a bright future simply because Americans have become so apathetic to governance that they no longer bother to participate, which is exactly what Saul Alinsky preached.
        It sounds like you want the Illinois model to be the national model, where our governor finds new and exciting ways to screw the citizens of Illinois and then blaming it all on Trump.
        Our politics have reached the point where the parties treat each other like true enemies and bi-partisanship it considered weakness. Crossing the aisle is forbidden especially for Democrats.
        The solution?
        It won’t happen in my lifetime, but the entire political system has to be turned over completely. It doesn’t get fixed simply because Trump is no longer President.
        It will take decades to change it. It can’t be done with a “re-brand”. The rules to govern at the state and federal levels have to be gutted and re-designed to actually govern again.
        The rule of law has to matter again. I expect any day now, Pritzker will come out and make murder a misdemeanor and Mayor BJ will still call it racist.
        I used to think that I was reasonable. I was a kid raised by Democrats who grew up to be a conservative. I have even voted split ticket. Having lived in this state my entire life, I can say that you almost reach the point of hopelessness, when you have the same political party control the governorship, the state house and the judicial. It doesn’t feel like “representative” government anymore.
        The glass is half empty or so it seems.

      4. Be careful what you wish for Thomas. If you mean the numbers necessary to override a Presidential veto as a result of massive November losses is your definition of Senate and House “Dem/woke control” then get ready for four more Democratic Senators (from the new states of Puerto Rico and Washington DC) and the packing and subsequent destruction of the Supreme Court. You are incredibly naive – bordering on sheer stupidity – not to realize the existential (and I mean existential literally) danger to our Republic regarding your suicidal wish.

    3. It is truly amazing that you drone on and on with your wack job diatribe and no government agency comes looking for you. You will not be taken to Dachau or Siberia to mine stones. Your whole theory has been blown out of orbit because it is pure bull. I figure you must live in Roswell where a number of known kooks reside. Go look for metallic sheets, it will give you something to create your tin foil hat.

    4. The very fact Robert that you can go online and freely rant and rave and spout your gasbaggery against the very society that allows you to do so, is a priori proof that free speech in the US does exist … although it is constantly under attack and needs constant defense. Here’s a thought experiment. Go to London. Head to speakers corner and start your ranting and raving. But let’s be fair. Since you ranted in the US about the evil Israelis, and the big bad Trump and the rich and evil American oligarchs, lets see you rant and rave about radical Islam, and the murderous Palestinians of Oct 7th, and of course the delusional trans folks. See what happens. Then tell me all about the lack of free speech in the United States.

  3. Well done here SK and thank you.

    AI may help humanity in many ways. But it can surely also help evildoers bring us to extinction. And the deep fake depictions of celebs is despicable.

  5. Very interesting and informative article.
    Vice Presidents warning to Europe was a wake up call.
    I’m sure most Americans, as well as, myself were surprised at the lack
    of free speech in European countries.
    Elon Musk et al bring a new twist to the thought police with
    borderless language and visuals. Cyber chaos is here.

  6. The full weight of the Irish government, media and EU elites as well as the BBC make war on one family because Enoch Burke refused to refer to one of his students with LGBTQ & etc. pronouns.

    America went to war to keep Ireland the other Eurotrash Globalists free from terror. No Tricolor on my front porch.

    https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/two-weeks-after-being-ordered-to-prison-why-are-enoch-burkes-mother-and-sister-still-at-large/a964145247.html

    1. There are how many immigrants here and in Europe from these countries. Where’s the terror? The oligarchs fund the illegal immigration, they fund the liberals schools, they profit off of smuggling, take our kids jobs and ciphon our tax money to pay for it all. The oligarchs are the real enemy, they fund the radical left and pitch that bullshit in the media.

      They pitch the globalism too. The EU, created by oligarchs. They meet in Davis to decide ways to screw us. They pitched the open borders ideas. The radical left would be smoking pot in the park if not for oligarch funding.

      It’s an all out assualt on the American way of life, our freedom and our ability to support our families. The enemy is within.

  8. Fake porn videos of teachers should have serious consequences, but I lean libertarian. UK Pakistani rape gangs continue and are probably getting worse because Brits get jailed if they speak up against them. Vance was right to criticize.

    Multiculturalism will kill Europe. As Thomas Sowell said, multiculturalism really means you cannot criticize any culture except Western culture.

  9. Very unlikely, but if I’m ever approached by a BBC reporter (but who knows – I’m sure they find my comments here offensive), I will tell him/her/random pronoun that BBC means something very different in the States.

  10. I beg to differ. Yes anyone on line can make hyper realist pornographic images of anyone they know. But doing so would clearly be defamatory which – as opposed to pornography – is not protected speech. And regarding AI generated pornography, well that really is not new. The technology is new, but not the concepts behind its illegality. Child pornography is not illegal because it is pornographic. It is illegal because it is obscene, whether virtually realistic as in AI, or a comic book drawing. Thus this issue is just “old wine in new bottles.” So yes, by all means, let’s go back to the 1970s, when those vendors selling Zap #4 and R Crumb’s depiction of Joe Blow and his incestuous family were subject to arrest and conviction. The issue remains then as now: obscenity vs pornography. Obscenity is not protected. You can be arrested for obscenity, even if said images are drawn by hand, as comic book artist Mike Diana was in 1991 and served three years in prison for doing so. All this decades before AI. Perhaps what we need is a redefinition of obscenity beyond that defined by Miller (which is now over 40 years old). After all, the “community” standard seems somewhat antiquated in the age of the Internet.

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