In Europe, Growing Calls for Musk to Be Arrested

 

Leftists in the United Kingdom and Europe are doubling down on censorship, calling for the arrest of X owner Elon Musk and the cancellation of the X social media platform to silence opposing views, former White House and Pentagon official Douglas MacKinnon warned Sunday.

"As someone who pays close attention to the politics and the media in the United Kingdom and Europe, I began to notice a shocking narrative emanating from a growing number on the left there calling for the arrest of Elon Musk as well as the cancellation of X, the social media site he owns," MacKinnon wrote in an opinion piece for The Hill.

"Surely, I thought, these people can't be serious. But they were — and are — deadly serious. For them, Musk and X have become public enemy No. 1."

The U.K. and Europe have been watching Musk like hawks to censor free speech amid Russia's war in Ukraine, the ongoing Israeli war on Iranian-backed terrorist proxies Hamas and Hezbollah, and the rise of terrorist and extremist activity endangering public safety.  

Also, the EU's Thierry Breton, a French businessman who is the European Commissioner for Internal Market, sent a letter to Musk warning him against spreading disinformation before an X Spaces interview with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump earlier this month — which Musk denounced as an anti-Trump election interference attempt.

The latest calls to close in on Musk come after Pavel Durov, the Russian-born billionaire founder and owner of the Telegram messaging app, was arrested at Le Bourget airport outside Paris shortly after landing on a private jet late Saturday, three sources told Reuters.

The arrest of the 39-year-old technology billionaire prompted on Sunday both a warning from Moscow to Paris that Durov should be accorded his rights and criticism from Musk who said that free speech in Europe was under attack. 

"Why have so many on the left and in the media seemingly fallen in love with censoring free speech or 'canceling' those who hold different opinions from themselves?" MacKinnon wrote. "I am old enough to remember when Democrats, liberals, and the media were all about free and protected speech.

"This has become a chilling and dangerous trend. I am also old enough to remember when Democrats, liberals, and the media raged against 'totalitarian' regimes silencing the voices of the opposition and the calls for their arrest. Now, they seemingly choose to weaponize censorship and 'lawfare' for their own means."  

The leftists in the U.K. and Europe are using the guise of "right-wing" extremism to censor speech they do not like, according to MacKinnon.

"What most set off the authorities and the cancel-pushing left in the U.K. was Musk posting, 'Civil war in the country is inevitable,'" he wrote. "Rather than address the concerns, results and legitimate fears that millions of their fellow citizens have with regard to unvetted and uncontrolled immigration, some authorities and media figures chose to lash out at Musk.

"After Prime Minister Keir Starmer — whom Musk called 'two tier Keir' — posted on X that his government 'will not tolerate attacks on mosques or on Muslim communities,' Musk responded with the question, 'Shouldn't you be concerned about attacks on *all* communities?'"

Musk's defense of speech and calling out unfettered migration as a root cause of violent crime has freedom of speech under attack, MacKinnon warned.  

"Could these forces on the left actually stop Musk?" he wrote. "Could they arrest and imprison him? Could they cancel X and silence the voices of hundreds of millions of citizens around the world? I would not be so fast to say 'no.'

"These are world 'leaders,' powerful far-left media sites and far-left multibillionaires collectively marshaling their might against him.

"We live in increasingly perilous times."

Information from Reuters was used in this report.  

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/musk-x-censorship/2024/08/25/id/1177819/