It's not censorship. It's democratic self-defense

It's not censorship. It's democratic self-defense
civiceconomist.substack.com

Sure, Elon is a certified schizo, but labeling everyone who points out issues with the EU leadership policies as "trolls", "far right", "MAGA" and "Putin supporters" to discredit opinions they don't like, only causes further contempt, and adding censorship to "protect democracy", doesn't fix the structural issues of your democracy which stem from the lack of trust and disappointment the voters have in their leaders and their policies from the last ~10 years, not from X and its blue checkmarks which only serves as a convenient scapegoat to dodge accountability.

X is just one of the few unmoderated escape valves people have left to vent their frustrations without fear of speech censorship or repercussions, and instead of leaders treating it as an option poll or pulse of the nation to know where the displeasure of their voters lie, they do exactly the opposite of what people there say, and then are shocked at elections why people get even angrier and start voting more extreme right/left in retaliation.

Oh, and the major hypocrisy that gives X a lot of weight despite its issues, is that when the free sharing of information on Twitter led to the 2011 Arab Spring regimes topplings despite those regimes trying to stop Twitter, GSM and internet access, it was championed as a victory for free speech by the west, but when the tables turn and the same free sharing of information on X leads to exposure of corruption, cronyism and lies of western governments and mainstream media, then now X is the problem and we get attempts of Chat-Control and Age-ID for our internet access. Huh, aint that sus how what's good for the goose isn't good for the gander.

So as that old saying goes, if you cut a man's tongue, you're not convincing people he's a liar, you're convincing them that you're afraid of what he has to say. Just to be clear, by "man" here I mean X and social media in general, not Elon, that guy's nuts.

Autocracy is what threatens EU democracy, not a check mark on a social media website.

So I don’t get called a Pro-Elon shill, I don’t like Elon, and think he is an ass. But he has done (maybe unwittingly) more for democracy on social media than his counterparts.

EDIT: Community notes might have been before Elon. So he only gets a half credit.

This. The government diverges from the will of the people, the government structures itself to resist the people changing it to reflect their will, the people become more likely to say "f this" and so something drastic. This isn't a new pattern or even unique to democracy. The 1790s French professional managerial class lost their heads this way.