Elon Musk – Part 2: The Limits of Free Speech & The Paradox of Tolerance – Compossible

In Part 1 we looked at how Musk takes all of the wrong lessons from the literary greats he apparently admires:

Elon Musk – Part 1: The Crusader Behind The Mask?

In this Part 2, we will examine the integrity of Musk’s views on free speech, and the engines of hate speech and disinformation he is developing.

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” ¹
(George Orwell)

Nature Abhors A Vacuum

We finished the last article lamenting that Musk is a villain who thinks he is a hero (“a ruined and terrible form” of a man). An extremist crusader hiding behind a mask of freedom.

But, as well you know dear reader, “nature abhors a vacuum“, and hark, lo! what’s this...

…at its moment of great darkness Gotham city (the city that nursed Trump and was ravaged -ravished?- by him for its labours) has found a new hero and this hero knows the meaning of free speech.

“We can respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves….And if there’s any way to terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power.”

Pow! Zok! Bam! Wham! Zohran!

“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”²
(Churchill)

We desperately need a new wave of fearless leaders, like Mamdani, that speak truth to power and oppose these dark tech-lords.

Now we need to look a bit more closely at this tricksy topic of freedom of expression and free speech, given that Musk promotes himself as a free speech warrior.

What is Free Speech?

“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”³

(art. 19, Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

Free speech is not just freedom from direct suppression and censorship of views the Government does not like, though it often takes that form (particularly in authoritarian regimes). It is a culture that permits and even encourages a healthy diversity of opinion and belief as providing a better chance of collective success (combinatorial problem solving and diverse exploration) and individual liberty.

George Orwell believed that the primary threat to free thought (and expressions of the same) in England was in fact that publishers and editors kept certain topics out of print because they were “frightened of public opinion” (or that of the wider establishment).

Orwell wrote of the wider establishment Orthodoxy (a set of ideas that all “right-thinking people” are expected to accept without question) and how anyone who challenges this prevailing view finds themselves “silenced with surprising effectiveness“ because the opinion is considered crass, unorthodox or something that is too impolite to mention in civilised company (I am well aware my tendency for somewhat polemical prose writing would be a black mark against me in some cultured English circles – if anyone read it!).

Orwell heavily criticised the tendency to believe that democracy could be defended by “totalitarian methods“ (which invariably led to the destruction of all expressions of independent thought). Many politicians and groups (I include Starmer’s UK Labour Party) have also failed to heed Orwell’s warning. What’s worse we are also seeing hard right appropriation of Orwell to bolster resurgent nativist racist ideas of what it means to be English (as I noted on Bluesky – ‘it takes a special kind of c*** to finish with a quote from Orwell in a racist opinion piece for the ..Torygraph‘).⁴

Noam Chomsky is the worthy successor to Orwell when it comes to understanding free speech, the media and the establishment. In his ground-breaking work ‘Manufacturing Consent‘, Chomsky (with Edward Herman) developed the Propaganda Model.

This model states that mass media serves as an ideological institution that carries out a supportive propaganda function through reliance on market forces, internalised assumptions, and also self-censorship, rather than official censorship (though that does occur too).

The Propaganda function is achieved through five filters that naturally weed out dissent and promote a “spectrum of acceptable opinion”. The filters ensure that media professionals who rise to positions of influence already possess the values and beliefs that integrate them into these institutional structures and belief systems.

As Chomsky wryly observed, when schooling Andrew Marr of the BBC, in an interview in 1996:

“I’m not saying you’re self-censoring. I’m sure you believe everything you’re saying. But what I’m saying is that if you believed something different, you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting.”⁵

(Chomsky)

Chomsky explicitly credits Orwell for stressing the importance of ‘thought-control’ in supposedly free societies, recognising the fact that censorship is often voluntary though driven by the orthodoxy imposed by the wealthy owners and advertisers.

It is, of course, obvious that these freedoms have never been nor can ever be absolute. They require constant maintenance and do not arise in a vacuum. For most of human history, these freedoms only applied to the wealthy propertied elite and the rulers, and in the West that meant wealthy white men. A situation some in the West appear keen to revert to. In addition, there are always limits (such as treason and clear incitement to violence or insurrection).⁶

Ultimately, the failure or hypocrisy of free speech absolutism is its refusal to recognise that rights are not abstract universal laws, like gravity, but human constructs that must be carefully exercised and protected in a way that is mutually supportive, or they become tools of tyrants and oligarchs.

A coherent and stable system of free speech requires Compossibility (that is, views and actions that are capable of living together).

Our diverse views must be capable of co-existing and supporting the system that enables such views

Towards a universal ethical framework

“1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.
2. The freedom and pluralism of the media shall be respected.”⁷

(art. 11, EU Charter)

Popper And The Paradox of Tolerance

One of the central philosophical challenges to free speech absolutism is explored in Karl Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance.

The paradox, formulated by Popper as a staunch defender of the open society, can be summarised as follows:

“Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant… then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them….We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.”⁸

Popper sought to establish that there must be necessary limits to tolerance and intolerant acts. As he noted, otherwise the intolerant will seize power and destroy the foundations of tolerance and freedom (which is exactly what we are seeing Musk, Trump, Orban, Netanyahu etc. doing).

Popper goes further than many, and I think beyond what is a reasonable threshold for restriction, when he claimed that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law. That’s why we need seriously considered and constructed limits on policing intolerant speech to avoid the same risks of narrow orthodoxy (see Policing the Perimeter below).

In the context of a digital town square or public forum, like X, the paradox of intolerance highlights the critical difference between: protecting diverse viewpoints, and actively platforming and personally and algorithmically amplifying messages that incite hatred, prejudice, and violence against protected groups. This also applies to censoring/ deplatforming/ suppressing voices of tolerance and those seeking to establish evidence based opinions. Musk is undeniably choosing to misuse his extraordinary power to reduce diversity of opinion and champion hate speech.

Popper was on the right track (with some modifications), the crucial questions are:

If we permit your use and interpretation of free speech to spread hate and incitement to violence and your intolerance of intellectual, political, racial or ethnic diversity, will it ultimately undermine the very system that permits the free speech rights you rely on?
Do your beliefs permit a plurality of opinions and freedom for others different to you?

If not, your freedom may not be Compossible with other people having the same freedom, and so it must be curtailed to the extent necessary to protect the integrity of diversity of opinion and freedom of action. The astute reader will note that our current economic system miserably fails this test in respect of freedom (which requires a much fairer distribution of resources and influence than currently exist).

Inequality and Inequity

Privatisation Of The Town Square

Musk famously asserted that he bought X to defend free speech. His stated goal was to lift content moderation “that goes far beyond the law” (in that he has succeeded but not in the sense some expected). He promised that for him “free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy”.

X is now an engineered distribution channel designed to spread extremist narratives at scale. A real force multiplier for hate speech and disinformation

Since acquisition, the platform has undergone significant changes that facilitate the propagation of extremist content. Changes include mass layoffs of content moderation staff, the disbandment of the Trust and Safety advisory council, and the reinstatement of numerous accounts previously banned for hate speech or extremism.

Musk’s stance on free speech is often referred to as a ‘Wild-West’ approach that, in line with US law, is much more tolerant of hate speech and disinformation than Europe. He has also been criticised for personally affirming and amplifying antisemitic, racist, and transphobic comments.

The reality of Musk’s actions as owner reveal the profound contradictions and hypocrisy we see across the whole Trump administration in its approach to media and diverse opinions (and pretty much everything else):

Hate Speech Prevalence: A study by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) found that X failed to remove the vast majority (86%) of posts flagged for “extreme hate speech”—including racist caricatures, Holocaust denial, and Nazi imagery—even after being reported to moderators.⁹
The Lawsuit as a Silencing Tool: X subsequently sued the CCDH.¹⁰ Judge Charles Breyer said Mr Musk was “punishing the defendants for their speech”. The legal action was intended to discourage independent oversight.
Suppression of Criticism: He has been criticised for censoring critics, including outright banning journalists from X.
The Law of Musk: His free speech advocacy seems to apply mostly to his own speech or that of his fans and promoters or those he wishes to promote. As we saw with Unsworth, in Part 1, respect for other people’s right to speech ends where his feelings or corporate interests are hurt.
Targeted Censorship: X has throttled links to news outlets and websites that publish unfavourable information about him or his companies. X’s rules are not absolute but are selectively enforced to protect the owner and his interests.
Algorithmic amplification and suppression:
- Research tracking activity through May 2023 found that the weekly rate of posts containing hate speech was approximately 50% higher than the months preceding Musk’s purchase and the weekly rate at which hate content was liked significantly increased by 70%.¹¹
- Content that Elon Musk interacts with receives an unparalleled boost due to his massive following and the platform’s new algorithms, effectively making him a “digital kingmaker” – for example, interactions with a far right German AfD politician’s posts caused her daily audience on X to surge from 230,000 to 2.2 million.
- The extremist violent anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson’s posts gained over 580 million views in a two-week period following a national tragedy in the UK, which Musk and others used to attack immigrants and the Government (see further below).
- Alleged manipulative strategies included adapting algorithms and creating thousands of fake accounts using AI systems such as ‘Grok’ and ‘Eliza‘.
- X’s algorithms had been deliberately engineered to downrate posts about Ukraine, and the ‘spaces’ function had flagged ‘Ukraine Crisis’ as a safety violation, leading to reduced visibility.

Musk’s version of free speech is not an public forum, it has better been described as “freedom for me, but not for thee”.

Grok & Grokipedia

The danger posed by Musk’s control over the public forum or square is now compounded by the integrated threat of his artificial intelligence enterprise, xAI, his AI program Grok and his right-wing knock-off of Wikipedia, Grokipedia.

Musk has said that Grok is the only AI that is focused on delivering the truth.

“When..Elon Musk introduced Grok 3, his AI company xAI’s latest flagship model, during a livestream in late February 2025, he described it as a “maximally truth-seeking AI.” Yet within days of its release, users discovered evidence suggesting that Grok 3 had been programmed to avoid unflattering mentions of both Musk himself and President Donald Trump, particularly regarding misinformation”¹²

Grok has generated praise for Adolf Hitler, support for Putin and has also referred to itself as “MechaHitler”. A direct consequence of algorithmic bias and the mega-pseud Musk’s fragile febrile grasp of facts and truth.

Grokipedia is designed to be a factual database used to train xAI’s Grok. Musk has also stated that Grok is trained using the firehose of information from his platform, X. This creates a closed loop where the AI’s understanding of reality is heavily dependent upon the content and biases chosen for amplification and suppression on X—the platform privileging far-right extremist narratives.

The creation of Grokipedia is, therefore, a strategic attempt to build a monolithic, ideologically-aligned source of truth to power his Private Ministry of Truth. It provides Musk with the infrastructure to bypass decentralised, community-driven knowledge sources (like Wikipedia) in favour of a proprietary and more easily manipulated alternative. When the source of a large language model’s “truth” is an ecosystem deliberately engineered to promote intolerance and disinformation (i.e. an oligarchical orthodox disinformation system) the resulting AI will encode and propagate that same ideological bias, not challenge it.

“On the [Grokipedia] entry for Adolf Hitler, the führer’s leadership and “rapid economic” achievements are noted before the Holocaust; the “Islam” page questions the religion’s “inherent compatibility with liberal democracy.” ¹³

Pro-Russian Disinformation

Musk’s support for and amplification of political narratives on X, and indeed many of the actions of the current American and Israeli (Usrael) administrations show a clear and potent alignment with the strategic goals of the Russian Federation.

“The first paragraph of the Grokipedia entry for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine repeatedly cites the Kremlin’s official website, using a speech from Vladimir Putin to describe the invasion’s purpose as “demilitarizing and denazifying Ukraine, protecting ethnic Russians and Russian speakers from alleged persecution in Donbas, and preventing Ukraine’s integration into NATO to neutralize threats to Russian security.“¹⁴

Russia’s primary objective is to undermine the European Union, and the X platform is a force multiplier for Russian strategic disinformation.¹⁵

Musk’s platform provides high-reach, “organic” amplification for Kremlin-aligned narratives and fails to take meaningful action when accounts are reported.¹⁶ Musk’s own posts have been spread by bot accounts operated by a Russian influence operation known as Doppelgänger¹⁷

Figure 1: Distribution of platform responses to 125 user-flagged illegal posts. While one flagged content was removed, the majority either received no acknowledgement or was not acted upon despite receiving a response.

These state-backed operations have been observed actively spreading Musk’s posts to further their shared goal of fracturing European consensus and eroding public trust in democratic institutions. Evidence of contempt (or even stronger feelings) for the EU and a desire for its destruction has been shown by all of these current leaders (and powerful people connected to their administrations) is trivially easy to find. In short, they would like to see the EU destroyed.

New Axis Powers?

Techno-Stalinism

“Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past”
(1984)

With each of these steps Musk is becoming a modern day techno-Stalinist.

Stalin’s regime was famous for systematically rewriting history and controlling knowledge to control truth and facts and solidify the leader’s power. Musk has modelled his digital empire on this (so his interest in 1984 was more than literary, he seems to be using it as an instruction manual just as Trump and others use Nazi Germany as their instruction manual):

Intellectual Cowardice and Orthodoxy: Stalinism created an environment where intellectuals feared to challenge the official party line (as Orwell noted), Musk’s system promotes oligarchical orthodoxy. Journalists, politicians and experts who challenge the X/Grok narrative face personal defamation, platform suppression, or legal action (like Unsworth or the CCDH), mirroring the techniques used to enforce compliance in totalitarian states.
The Rewriting of History (Doublethink): Stalinist regimes famously purged and revised photos, archives, and official histories to erase or change inconvenient truths or discredited rivals. Musk’s Grokipedia/X system achieves the same effect digitally: if the primary source of the AI’s “knowledge” is a data stream curated to promote certain political narratives (e.g., denying climate science, amplifying anti-DEI rhetoric), the AI effectively becomes a digital historical revisionist that minimises or omits truths inconvenient to the oligarchical agenda.
Centralised Control of Reality (The Ministry of Truth): In 1984, the Ministry of Truth controlled all information, forcing citizens to accept whatever the Party deemed true, this was inspired by Stalin’s Soviet Union. Musk’s control over the distribution mechanism (X) and the knowledge base (Grokipedia) and the AI (Grok)is the privatised version of this monopoly over reality. He is not just censoring; he is creating a self-reinforcing, proprietary version of truth that is insulated from external, democratic reality checks.

A Dark Wizard

Musk’s involvement in the UK and European political landscape is part of a broader, sustained, and aggressive campaign of interference in political discourse internationally. His actions are an unprecedented assault on British and wider European sovereignty by a foreign businessman. He has engaged in public critiques and attacks on EU institutions, policy, and leaders, often framing their regulatory efforts as an infringement on free speech and democracy (or much worse, such as accusing them of illegality or being rape apologists or facilitators).

The EU is currently investigating him and X for breaches of the Digital Services Act (DSA)¹⁸ addressing illegal content, improving platform accountability (including algorithmic transparency), and ensuring the protection of fundamental rights.

What is his beef with the EU, you ask? Those bloody communists in Brussels have had the effrontery to pass a law which aims to create safer and more transparent online environments.

Musk has actively supported far-right political parties and movements across Europe (in fact across more than 18 countries on six continents ).¹⁹ He consistently employs rhetoric asserting that countries are facing ruin, or “teetering on the edge of economic and cultural collapse” due to a perceived threat from “multiculturalism that dilutes everything“.

In Germany, he provided explicit endorsement for the Alternative for Germany (AfD), calling it the “last spark of hope” and legitimised the party (which is under investigation for extremism) including by hosting a live-streamed conversation with AfD leader Alice Weidel.

German analysts noted that Musk’s platform activities form a dual front of disinformation, aligning with Russia’s strategic objective to destabilise Western democracies and undermine support for Ukraine. His rhetoric and the amplification on X functions as a crucial “force multiplier” for established Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) operations.²⁰

“Hard-right commentators, politicians and activists in Europe have uncovered a secret to expanding their influence: engaging with Elon Musk.”²¹

Musk’s support for far-right leaders is also driven by a strategy of political capture and regulatory avoidance to protect his corporate interests.²² This has been demonstrated by the reciprocal actions of leaders like Italy’s Matteo Salvini, who actively advocated for Starlink contracts and pushed back against EU efforts to regulate content on X after receiving significant algorithmic amplification from Musk. This is part of a wider far-right plan of ensuring Europe is weak and vulnerable to continued predation.

The Rape of Europa: Sovereignty, Security & The Ethical Tech Opportunity

Spotlight: Musk’s attacks on democracy and law (UK)

Musk has repeatedly engaged in feuds with Britain’s Labour government. He has publicly characterised the UK as a “tyrannical police state” and claimed that the people of Britain have had enough. He actively supported a viral online petition calling for an immediate general election in the UK, using his platform X to push the petition. He publicly stated that the UK needed to be “liberated” and claimed that “only Reform can save Britain“. He also suggested that King Charles III should dissolve parliament.

Musk has used algorithms to amplify rage filled extreme voices from the right and far-right online, and new users are funnelled towards these voices (over 50% of the political content shown to new users is categorised as extreme). ²³ He has personally explicitly voiced support for the Reform UK party (which has known links to Russia).²⁴

Validation: He publicly engaged with Reform UK leader Nigel Farage on X, questioning why the media characterised him as far-right, which provided powerful validation for the party’s populist narrative. This interaction helped Farage more than triple his daily audience.
Financial Links: Musk met with Farage and Reform UK’s treasurer Nick Candy. Reports indicated that Musk was considering donating as much as $100 million (£80 million) to Reform UK.
Ideological Alignment: Musk’s alignment with Reform UK centres on several shared policy views, including strong criticism of mass migration and open borders, a desire to shrink the public sector, and a focus on culture wars against perceived “woke mind virus” and “transgender ideology”.

Political and media analysts argue the timing of Musk’s political assault has little to do with chance but is intended to put pressure on UK authorities as they work to regulate online platforms.²⁵

Musk has used inflammatory rhetoric and disinformation to attack Prime Minister Keir Starmer, labelling him an “evil tyrant” and criticising his government.

“Two-Tier Policing”: Musk accused Starmer of running a “two-tier policing system” that he claimed prejudiced white people.
Child Exploitation Allegations: Musk leveraged his platform to accuse Starmer of being “complicit in the rape of Britain“²⁶ and child sexual exploitation related to his prior role as head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Starmer publicly refuted these accusations as spreading lies and misinformation (Starmer was not personally involved in the non-prosecution decisions cited by Musk’s allies).
Attacking Jess Phillips: Musk suggested that Starmer’s safeguarding minister, Jess Phillips, should be imprisoned, labelling her a “rape genocide apologist“.²⁷

Musk’s management of X and his rhetoric have been identified as a key driver of far-right unrest and have created ideal conditions for violence in the UK.²⁸ Musk’s own language and the systematic manipulation of opinion on X constitutes clear incitement to violent hate crime and insurrection in the UK. His actions validate parties and figures considered extremist or fringe, accelerating polarisation and undermining civic discourse.

Musks rhetoric aligns with extremist narratives of “cultural dissolution“, Islamophobia, Western collapse due to multiculturalism and great replacement theories.

Demanding Release: As noted before, Musk has directly and aggressively intervened on behalf of the convicted far-right anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson (aka Stephen Lennon). Musk used X to publicly demand that Robinson be released from prison, characterising him as a “political prisoner“.
Boosting Content: Musk reposted Robinson’s content, including a film repeating false claims about a Syrian refugee, and amplified the conspiracy theory that Starmer was planning to send rioters to “detainment camps” on the Falkland Islands (a false post later deleted).
Quantifiable Impact: Last summer the UK faced a national tragedy (we had an appalling knife attack on adults and children at a Taylor Swift themed dance class in Southport were 3 children were killed and 8 children and 2 adults were injured).
- Far right influencers were well prepared to quickly focus blame on Islam and undocumented immigrants. This led to riots across the UK.
- Robinson’s anti-Muslim posts received immense algorithmic promotion, garnering over 580 million views in a two-week period following the Southport attack.
- Robinson himself claimed that Musk’s actions provided him and his supporters with a voice again.
Legal Costs: Robinson has thanked Musk for covering his legal costs for a trial related to refusal to comply with counter-terrorism requests for device access (Robinson was acquitted).²⁹

Musk linked the 2024 Southport stabbings and subsequent far-right riots to mass immigration and open borders. He repeatedly posted that “civil war” in Britain was “inevitable”.³⁰ As we noted in the previous article, Musk has since urged “the English to ally with the hard men like Tommy Robinson and fight for their survival or they shall surely all die“.

Despite having significant new powers under the Online Safety Act, including the ability to levy huge fines—up to £18 million or 10% of global turnover—no serious enforcement action has been taken against Musk or X for his sustained campaign of political interference and incitement (causing significant concern to people in Britain).³¹ Meanwhile UK Labour Govt Ministers counsel the need for humility in the face of these authoritarian extremist techno-lords whilst locking up peaceful old age genocide protestors.³²

“Peter Kyle, the UK’s technology secretary, recently suggested that governments need to show a “sense of humility” with big tech companies and treat them more like nation states. What are your thoughts on that?
I think it’s a baffling misunderstanding of the role of a democratically elected and accountable leader.”³³

Rumours are that Musk is also attempting to circumvent UK laws banning direct foreign political donations by routing potential large financial contributions to Reform UK through X’s UK branch.

The Power to Dominate by Hate

So what are people like Zohran Madmani in the US and Zach Polanski in the Green Party (England & Wales) fighting against?

The corrosive influence of wealth on those in public office.

The purchase of political power and media control.

The amplification of fear, distrust and hate towards others (particularly the weak, the vulnerable, the marginalised, the poor and the disenfranchised).

“Forget George Orwell’s “Two Minutes Hate”. That was strictly for amateurs. If you haven’t got in a full half hour of loathing for foreigners then you clearly don’t love your country very much. And this hate is no longer confined to the far right. Even some bien-pensants of the centre left are joining in. Everyone now has licence to hate. “³⁴

The tech pioneer that claimed he would make X a new hope for free speech against the woke liberal forces has, completely unsurprisingly, shown himself to be the most effective mechanism for manufacturing disinformation, hate and hate speech. We see the same across the world as the oligarchy buys up media channels to support their agenda and authoritarian political parties and governments.

It is obvious that, even with great intentions, no man should wield such power as Musk has. His intentions are not freat and his awaking dark forces that would be best left dormant. The new Empire grows stronger every day.

“If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next”³⁵

Policing the Perimeter

The problem with managing free speech issues is often much deeper than the available laws, though with new technologies we need new regulatory and policing tools. The question is what are the permissible limits of free speech, the point at which such speech and behaviour becomes a systemic danger?

The greatest danger and corruption flows (like in economics and politics) from a single or a few immensely wealthy individuals gaining control over most of our media and information sources. The threat of tyranny shifts from governmental to privatised totalitarianism (especially when these people support authoritarian movements that work synergistically with them to maintain control of the message and the masses).

Musk’s self-identification as a “free speech absolutist” was a Trojan horse for him to create and control his privatised Ministry of Truth. Musk’s use of his platform under the cloak of ‘free speech’ is a classic example of what Popper warned against – exploiting tolerance to destroy it. Much as Hitler, Trump and others exploited democracy to seek to destroy it.³⁶

Analysts have characterised X as an “active, engineered distribution channel designed to spread extremist narratives at scale”

The Compossibility principle requires that the exercise of one person’s right to speak does not destroy another’s foundational freedoms. Therefore limits must be placed on content that actively threatens the democratic and tolerant order. These core limitations fall into five main categories:

Speech Undermining Sovereignty and Public Safety: Speech that encourages or coordinates actions that demonstrably threaten the structural operation of the state (e.g., publishing secure classified information that endangers human lives or revealing active military strategy). Subject to public interest privilege (e.g., whistleblowing), this speech fundamentally endangers the state’s capacity to protect the very democratic order that grants these rights.
Incitement to Imminent Violent Criminal Action: Speech directed at inciting or producing imminent lawless action, such as insurrection (e.g. Jan 06 Capitol riots). This bypasses debate and aims to use violence to overthrow the constitutional processes that secure all other freedoms, leading inevitably to collapse or authoritarian rule.
Hate Speech and Advocacy of Intolerance: Speech that incites hatred and violence against protected groups. This is the core of Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance: granting unlimited freedom to the intolerant destroys the foundational diversity of the society by driving tolerant voices out of the public square.
Deliberate Disinformation and Election Interference: The intentional spread of lies to manipulate public opinion and destroy faith in core democratic institutions (e.g., elections, courts). When systematic disinformation destroys the ability to discern shared reality, rational, democratic debate becomes impossible, rendering free speech meaningless as a tool for self-governance.
Coercive, Hateful, and Harassing Speech (The ‘Freedom From’ Threat): Targeted abuse (e.g., online harassment) used to silence, intimidate, or drive out specific individuals or minorities. This ensures the public square is dominated by those with power or those conforming, leading to an oligarchical orthodox information system.

The fairness, proportionality and effectiveness in policing these limits requires:

Maintaining a clear distinction between content that is merely unpopular or offensive, and content that actively threatens the democratic and tolerant system itself.
Recognising the difference between speech that may be hurtful to some from hateful speech which is in essence cruel, bullying or dehumanising.
Transparency about how editorial decisions and algorithms work and plurality of ownership of media systems (that is not effectively a few very wealth powerful individuals as it the case currently).
Regulators having the tools, resources, powers and political support to take action – knowing full well that those very same powerful individuals will abuse their platforms and power to try to avoid such regulation.

In simpler terms, managing free speech is like managing a traffic system.The system works (saves lives whilst allowing movement) and is fair because the laws are known (transparent), applied by independent police and courts (impartial), and their purpose is to ensure that one person’s freedom to drive does not directly cause destruction or injury to others (safe).

European Regulatory Frameworks

The EU Digital Services Act (DSA) and the EU Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act) together attempt to confront the new class of systemic risks emerging from platforms like X and AI programs like Grok —this is especially important when the boundary between user content, algorithmic recommendation, and AI-generated content is effectively dissolving. The UK has the Online Safety Act (OSA) which achieves some of the purposes that the DSA achieves.

Each framework imposes a form of “duty of care,” but their ability to contain disinformation, hate speech, and targeted manipulation increasingly depends on how they address the different interacting technologies and systems that amplify such material, not just the content itself.

The DSA directly targets systemic platform harms. Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) such as X must identify and mitigate risks linked to disinformation, algorithmic amplification of extremism, and the societal impact of opaque recommending systems. It recognises that platforms are not passive hosts but active participants in shaping public attention.
The AI Act extends the system design regulation logic further by regulating general-purpose AI systems like Grok, requiring transparency about training data, safeguards against bias, and accountability for harmful or misleading outputs.
When Grok generates or amplifies disinformation on X , the intersection of the DSA and AI Act becomes critical: the DSA governs how it spreads, whilst the AI Act governs why and how it was produced (model standards ). Both Acts rely on transparency and regulator access to data. The DSA also empowers the European Commission to demand data access and impose structural remedies.
The OSA, by contrast, focuses more narrowly on removing illegal and child-harmful material, without the DSA’s structural oversight of algorithmic design or cross-platform amplification effects. The OSA grants Ofcom some investigation and enforcement powers but stops short of regulating how AI or recommendation algorithms shape discourse.

The difference in impact between the OSA and DSA is significant. The DSA seeks to address the architecture of systemic harm—targeting disinformation and harm. Whereas the OSA polices individual behaviour and content legality but leaves the deeper algorithmic risks largely unregulated.

A critical flaw in the OSA is the difficulty in proving the legal standard of intent to cause harm. This high threshold makes the OSA ill-suited for tackling systemic risks orchestrated by a platform owner. An owner can make deliberate, high-level operational choices—such as gutting moderation teams or altering algorithms to favour extremist content—that result in widespread harm, while claiming their actions are protected expression and arguing there was no specific intent for the resulting outcomes.

In short, whilst the OSA enforces conduct, the DSA (and AI Act) aim to regulate design as well. Unlike the UK, the EU’s approach can actually address much of the existential risk of someone like Musk, who is able to warp the informational integrity of democratic society.

It must be remembered that much of Musk’s political interference in Europe is aimed at neutering regulation and oversight of X, xAI and Grok (and Starlink etc) and avoiding transparency into how uses algorithms and AI to fuel hate and disinformation. It helps Musk immensely that he has the full force of the US Govt behind him, and that Europe is still in a vassal relationship with, what is now clearly, a fascist US administration.

That was a lot to read (and write!)..so as a reminder:

Everyone has the freedom to speak and of opinion. However, that freedom is not absolute, it is limited by laws (limits on incitement, hate speech, defamation, etc.) which are supposed to keep us all safe and able to exercise that freedom responsibly. However, this requires that major players act in good faith or, failing that, be prosecuted and even banned and this requires political will.

It’s really not rocket science…

In Part 3 we will look at Musk’s Global Private Technology Empire (AI, Space X, Starlink satellites, Neuralink, robots, datacentres etc) and the risks it poses to Europe and the rest of the world