In the coming days, the public consultations on the guidelines for the practical application of the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) will come to a close. The media are silent, yet it is precisely this document that may decide the future of freedom of speech in Europe! The eurocrats have lumped together content promoting terrorism and violence against children with notions such as “disinformation” and “hate speech.” And these have for years served radicals for one purpose alone – to silence inconvenient voices and push them out of public debate.

July 10 Is the Deadline for Consultations Crucial to Internet Freedom in the EU

“The EU’s migration policy is leading to a rise in crime.”

For many people, the above sentence is a statement of an obvious fact, or at the very least a thesis worthy of in-depth discussion and analysis.

And yet, before long, for a sentence exactly like this one, any of us could fall victim to internet censorship!

Barely a week and a half remain. On July 10, the public consultations on the guidelines for the practical application of the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) will conclude. The media are silent, yet it is precisely this document that may decide the future of freedom of speech in Poland!

The Digital Services Act is being sold to us as a tool for tidying up the internet – a fight against unlawful content, a curb on the arbitrary power of the big platforms, protection for the ordinary user.

The reality is different. The eurocrats have lumped together content promoting terrorism and violence against children with notions such as “disinformation” and “hate speech.” And these have for years served radicals for one purpose alone – to silence inconvenient voices and push them out of public debate.

What Is the EU’s Internet Censorship Meant to Look Like?

Under Article 34 of the DSA, the content to be monitored and censored is content that may “have any negative effect on civic discourse, electoral processes, and public security,” as well as “any negative effect” on gender-based violence, on “the protection of public health,” and even on someone’s “physical or mental well-being.”

The effect? Under the pretext of protecting users, a machine of preventive censorship is being built.

The criteria are so general that they can be used to block a wide range of demands and opinions. It is the censors who are to decide what constitutes a “negative effect on civic discourse,” and what will count as a statement undermining “the protection of public health” or “affecting gender-based violence.” Criticism of mass migration, revealing the nationality of the perpetrators of crimes, opposition to the demands of LGBT activists, discussion of sanitary policy during the pandemic – all of this may be subject to censorship.

Big platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, X, and YouTube will face a simple choice: censor in advance, or pay draconian fines – reaching as much as 6% of their global revenue. We are talking about gigantic sums, because the threatened penalty in the case of Facebook or Instagram amounts to as much as 6 billion dollars!

Just imagine how a platform placed under such a threat will behave. It’s simple. It will remove more content. It will restrict more posts. It will censor faster and more zealously. EU experts are already suggesting that the content of a post should be eliminated at the very moment the user types it into the site’s text box – before he even presses the “publish” button!

The point is to remove every post that might draw the attention of the EU censors. Because it is safer to delete a politically incorrect comment than to risk a fine running into the billions.

Censorship Is Meant to Remain Imperceptible

And now for the worst part: this censorship can operate in silence – without our knowledge.

The EU’s implementing documents openly permit an entire arsenal of tools: reducing reach, demonetization, warning labels attached to content, hiding a comment, suspending the ability to share, limiting the visibility of a profile, removing content from recommendations, flagging a post as “questionable.” A voice of opposition to the left will not formally disappear. It will simply stop reaching anyone.

The guidelines being drawn up by the European Commission, which look like a technical annex, will soon become a practice applied to millions of European users – and this regardless of the stage the implementation of the DSA has reached in individual EU member states.

Ordo Iuris Lawyers Stand in Defense of Freedom of Speech

Only 7 days remain. That is why our experts are already at work. The document under consultation until July 10 will determine how the “trusted flaggers” are to be designated.

There are many indications that the EU censors will turn out to be politically engaged “investigative journalists” funded by the EU or the Soros network, along with entities designated by, for instance, German press agencies. It is their judgment that will decide which content will be deemed a threat to “civic discourse,” “public health,” “gender-based violence,” or the “mental well-being” of migrants and LGBT activists.

Our reports on the DSA have reached national politicians and allies from other EU states, and even think tanks in Washington and the U.S. State Department. After all, the censorship is meant to be forced upon American corporations. My article on this subject appeared in the influential outlet “Brussels Signal”.

We are preparing a final analysis, which we will submit to the European Commission as part of the ongoing consultations. In it, we will point out every threat to freedom of expression hidden in the eurocrats’ plans, and we will prove that conservative, religious statements, and statements concerning sovereignty, the family, and the protection of life have exactly the same right to be present in the public sphere as left-wing ones.

If we lose, the campaign for the 2027 elections to the Polish parliament will resound with left-wing slogans alone, because censorship will eliminate all the others.

I assure you that, right up to the very end, we will keep a close watch on the eurocrats and take every action to defend freedom of speech in Poland!

Everyone who supports our systemic and wide-ranging efforts will be defending their own freedom and political freedom in our Homeland.

Reprisals for Opposing Mass Migration

Donald Tusk’s government is already today giving us a host of occasions to defend freedom of speech.

This week, Ordo Iuris Attorney Magdalena Majkowska stood before the court as counsel for Ms. Oliwia – a young mother of a one-year-old boy (expecting her second child), who has been charged with publicly inciting hatred on the grounds of racial, national, and religious differences. She faces a sentence of up to 3 years in prison.

The cause of these baseless accusations was her sincere and emotional speech during a lawful anti-immigration demonstration in Zamość. Ms. Oliwia opposed the bringing into our Homeland of immigrants from cultures hostile to Europe. She recalled the brutal murder of a 24-year-old woman committed a month earlier in Toruń by an immigrant from Venezuela. She also spoke movingly of how she fears for the safety of herself and her child.

The young mother’s address was full of emotion, but it did not call for aggression! The woman demanded only a responsible migration policy and voiced sincere concerns shared by hundreds of thousands of Polish mothers.

Despite this, the prosecutor’s office, politically subordinated to the government of Donald Tusk, decided to stage a show trial and convict Ms. Oliwia of “hate speech.”

As a result, the young woman, in the 5th month of pregnancy, had to appear in court on Tuesday, where she testified under enormous stress and with tears in her eyes.

Majkowska recalled how important the guarantees of freedom of speech are and categorically demanded an acquittal. Criminal liability for public statements should be exceptional in character and limited to flagrant cases of incitement to aggression.

The prosecution is demanding 10 months of restriction of liberty for the pregnant mother. A verdict in the case may be handed down in as little as 2 weeks – 3 months before Oliwia’s due date…

I will keep you informed of the further course of this case, and I assure you that Ms. Oliwia will be able to count on the help of the Ordo Iuris Institute’s lawyers right to the very end.

We must win freedom of speech in order to preserve our political freedom.

Atty. Jerzy Kwaśniewski – President of the Ordo Iuris Institute

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Source of cover photo: Ordo Iuris

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