The american right has already taken away our freedom of speech in Europe unfortunately, by turning off left-wing microphones on SoMe, and ramming up the volume of the the far-right, so it is the only thing ever getting heard. So the question is if we want to give free speech back to the people by taken the algorithms and platforms away from the tech robber barons and enemy nations.
I think it is time to do so. No nations have ever succeeded by handing over the control of their media to their enemies.

Alt Rocker Charged With Calling Italian PM Meloni "Piece of Shit, Racist Fascist" - Daily Beast

Placebo guitarist and vocalist Brian Molki did not mince words when he told the crowd at a 2023 concert outside Turin what he thought of Italy’s far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. “Pezzo di merda, fascista, razzista," the British alternative rock star called out, earning a round of cheers from the locals. Meloni, none too pleased with being characterized as a “piece of s---, fascist, racist,” sued under rules that target anyone who “publicly defames the republic.” On Monday, Italy’s justice ministry told prosecutors in Turin they can proceed with a “contempt of the institutions” charge against Molki for defaming Italian authorities. Known for a string of 90s hits including “Pure Morning”, the frontman could be fined up to €5,000. A spokesperson for the justice ministry told The Guardian it is unlikely Molki will receive a prison sentence, which Italian courts can hand down for up to three years in defamation cases. Because of its unique defamation law, Italy has one of the highest rates of libel lawsuits against media. Last year, the author Roberto Savioni was found guilty for defaming Meloni when he called her “a bastard” for her hardline anti-immigration views.

Wonder what J.D. Vance has to say about this one. Here's a clear cut example of freedom of speech being impinged upon. But because the pezzo di merda is a supporter of Trump, I doubt he'll be making any trips to Rome to denounce her. 

The Guardian noted that the granddaughter of Benito Mussolini recently left Brothers of Italy, Meloni's party, because she felt that the party was too "extreme."

It makes me so mad. I don't care if these people are convincing others the world is made of cheese, let the fools say what they want and let others treat them others distain or laugh at them but just for calling the powers that be a cuss word, that's vile. People forget so easily of history and how much was sacrificed to get these freedoms or prevent other ways of life that have no place for free expression. 

If we loose free speech, we aren't in a healthy democracy anymore. Every EU country has their own laws but the EU should have a frame work for this sort of thing to prevent it from happening. We must have shared values and that should include free speech as a fundamental right not to be infringed on regardless of how hateful or vile or in this case "threatening" to people in power. 

J.D. Vance was recently in Europe, claiming to be concerned about the state of free speech in the E.U. He isn't going to say anything about Meloni, because in his eyes, people don't have the right to criticize a right-wing regime. He was mostly there to stump for Meloni's German counterpart, Alice Weidel of AfD. 

Also looks like Meloni, Weidel, Orban, or Robert Fico don't have "shared values" with what the E.U. claims to stand for. 

Does the EU stand for free speech though? Cause all I see is German politics and handling of free speech seeping it's way into the EU from the top down.

Off topic, For a Union we aren't very unified. Yeah, the states in the US have different values but at least they speak the same language, have the same shared history and culture, despite their differences among the population today. Our money is the same, same business interests and we are bound by NATO for defence, that's about it.

Social media isn't a marketplace of free thought. It's rigged with algorithms and bots, so it's a marketplace for manipulation of free thought. The lack of laws against lies, deception and manipulation have allowed it that radical positions could be spread and normalized, so if governments continue to sit idle, then democracies will crumble one after another because too many voters cannot tell apart fact from fiction anymore.

If the solution to that should be education instead of more requirements and laws pertaining to social media platforms, then it's a lost cause. You can't educate people who are stuck within a bubble and will therefore never see material that helps them to do some critical thinking. We are already at the point where it's necessary that the bubble must be popped. Simply put, all social media platforms should be required to weed out lies, deception and misinformation, or otherwise they'll be banned from doing business.

In the world of Metal Gear Solid they had the same problem, an AI had a plan to control the flow of information. You know what Solid Snake done? He, Along with Raiden went and destroyed GW (The AI) anyway, thwarting the AIs plans because... it's a terrible idea. 

People are not as stupid as the media who want to control information for their own gain and profit would have you believe. There are many other ways to solve the problem like teaching media literacy in school, how to spot sponsored content and initiatives along this line that are preemptive without taking people's rights away. 

Free speech is the most fundamental of human rights and one we have only had for a very short time, even decades ago there was soft barriers on free speech created by social norms in the US and in much of the rest of the world by the Catholic Church or Islam. Do you have any idea how long it took us to get that free speech in society, how much it cost and how insanely bad it would be to start restricting speech now with the communications technology we have? If you bring in these kind of restrictions and they expand over time to clamp down on more and more they are NEVER coming back until our civilization fails cause there is no where to fight to get them back. The powers that be would simply be too powerful and use the flow of information against us, to confuse us and divide us... like what's happening right now with the main stream media.

Think of how someone in the LGBT community could be affected by this if it was turned the other way. Perhaps the new leadership doesn't like us so hey, they'll shut LGBT out and censo... oh wait, that's happening right now in America isn't it.  

Who decides what is right and what is wrong? Cause it only takes one leadership shift for those decisions to turn around and effect. Look what Trump has done in 30 days, now imagine that but the rules for misinformation and restrictions on it are in place and for him to decide. Again, there are many, many more intelligent but slightly more difficult ways to implement ways to combat this without going full on Orwellian. 

Those weren't soft barriers. The U.S. had a House of Representatives committee called the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), which was heavily right wing in nature. They actually threw people in jail, most notably the film director Dalton Trumbo, who spent a year in a federal prison in Kentucky for refusing to cooperate with HUAC. Ronald Reagan and John Wayne were two of the biggest proponents of HUAC and turned many of their fellow actors in to Congress. Hedda Hopper was basically the Joe Rogan of her time and used her hugely popular column to target people for HUAC. You also had Senator Joseph McCarthy, who used his alliance with J. Edgar Hoover to ruin his political enemies by questioning their patriotism. He also used his connections with the DEA to score drugs, and his substance abuse problems killed him at the age of 48. 

Not sure where to put this, but Pope Francis has double pneumonia, at the age of 88. He’s apparently not expecting himself to survive.

What a confusing post of yours.

Indeed, the USA shows us - meaning us in the EU and the UK - where the social media madness leads us. The far-right hijacks the platform, gets elected due to a sizeable chunk of the population being unable to tell apart truth and lies, and then proceeds to oppress free speech on a government level. If us here in the EU and the UK would already be at that point, then it would be too late to act. But that's not the case, because we still have leaders who respect science and facts. That is why the time to act is now instead of allowing the American far-right to play the same game in Europe too and influence our elections for the worse.

Always remember that free speech is not absolute because just about every EU country and the UK have hate speech laws, and they have them for a good reason. And the reason why the vast majority of any given country has no problem with hate speech laws is because they have no desire to vomit such crap, so it doesn't affect their right to free speech at all.

Freedom does not work without rules. The key principle of freedom is that everyone must respect the freedom of everyone else, so there must be certain things that have to be deemed off limits in order to secure the freedom. That is the entire reason why wannabe oppressors - a.k.a. the far-right - complain about being oppressed all the time: Because the idea of everyone being equal is disturbing to them, and it hurts them even more that their mindset does not constitute the consensus of the majority.

So how can the thought of mandatory clamping down on lies, deception and misinformation on social media sound like a bad thing to you? It's the logical thing to do to protect free speech as well as all the freedom that has been achieved up till now, because the far-right absolutely wants to turn back the clock and they will exploit everything they can to accomplish their goal.