The Digital Gulag

Von der Leyen’s Europe proudly presents itself as the cradle of liberty. The Enlightenment, the democratic rule of law, and Free Speech rank among the foundations upon which Europe built its civilisation and by which it inspired the rest of the world. Yet behind this self-assured display, a development is unfolding that is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore: the criminalisation of unorthodox opinions.

Warnings about the steady erosion of free speech were dismissed for years as exaggerated or simply paranoid. Today, those warnings are no longer coming solely from dissidents and fringe voices. At the Munich Security Conference, U.S. Vice President JD Vance cautioned that fundamental freedoms in Europe are increasingly under strain. Shortly thereafter, The Economist published a series of articles arriving at much the same conclusion: Europe has a free-speech problem.

Digital freedom in Europe at stake

And the opinions now coming under scrutiny are not necessarily calls for violence, which are rightly illegal. Increasingly, the target is speech deemed offensive, hurtful, or insulting. Or, to use the term favoured throughout the Anglosphere: hate speech.

‘Hate speech’ is commonly defined as spoken or written expression that conveys hatred, and the notorious antisemite Herman Brusselmans has demonstrated to Flanders that such speech certainly exists. Jewish communities in Europe’s major cities are increasingly confronted with a raw and unfiltered antisemitism that evokes a darker era, when Jews were likened to vermin to be eradicated. That such rhetoric can swiftly translate into real-world violence was illustrated by the bloodbaths at Bondi Beach and the Capitol. Yet it is not this genuinely hateful language that appears to attract the harshest scrutiny. More often, it is speech that offends those in positions of authority.

Hate speech is speech they hate.

In Britain, the country that gave the world some of the foremost defenders of the liberal tradition — among them the ‘three Johns’: Milton, Locke and Mill — some 12,000 arrests are made each year under hate-speech laws, according to a recent report in The Times. More than thirty a day. Are all of these people genuinely spreading hatred? Or are they merely offending the dogmas of a pathologically politically correct culture in which feelings increasingly outweigh truth?

Even wrongthink has become a punishable offence. Adam Smith-Connor and Isabel Vaughan-Spruce were prosecuted for silently praying near an abortion clinic. They approached no one, distributed no leaflets, and caused no disturbance whatsoever. Whatever one’s position on abortion, the question remains the same: since when has a peaceful thought become a matter for the police and the courts?

The trend is not confined to the public square. In Finland, former Member of Parliament Päivi Räsänen endured years of prosecution after sharing a Bible verse and criticising her church’s position on LGBT issues. The Räsänen case sends a troubling message: those who witness what happens to dissenting voices quickly learn which opinions are best left unspoken. Citizens are not silenced through mass arrests, but through self-censorship.

The most insidious battle against free speech is now being waged online. With the Digital Services Act, a European thought police first appeared on the horizon, tasked with policing the boundaries of permissible online discourse. Social-media platforms were once encouraged to submit questionable content to fact-checkers who were themselves never fact-checked. Today, the ambition goes further. It is no longer only so-called misinformation that is targeted, but also opinions that depart from the approved consensus.

Criticism of unchecked immigration, of the erosion of European culture, of Islamism, and of sexual perversions has become unwelcome, as have views that affirm national identity, the preservation of European civilisation and its values, Christianity, cultural self-preservation, and traditional family values. Such anathemas are increasingly portrayed as threats to democracy, even as the unelected leaders of the European Union stand as living testimony to the profoundly undemocratic nature of the institution they represent.

History shows that censorship never begins as a frontal assault on liberty. It arrives as a reasonable, necessary, and well-intentioned measure designed to protect the public. Controversial voices are merely the first targets; everyone who refuses to conform to the prevailing orthodoxy eventually follows.

Europeans today face a fundamental choice. Do they wish to live in a free society, where individuals may express their convictions without fear of reprisal, even when those convictions are uncomfortable? Or do they prefer an Orwellian order in which governments and bureaucrats determine which words may still pass their lips? Europe’s war on free speech is about more than the erosion of democracy. It is the very possibility of debate — and with it the search for Truth — that is at stake.

Those who accept the digital gulag today may find themselves in a real one tomorrow, condemned not for a crime, but for the slightest act of ideological disobedience.

Image credits: Getty Images via Unsplash