The days of censoring Americans online are over, said US secretary of state Marco Rubio. “The EU should be supporting free speech not attacking American companies over garbage,” vice-president JD Vance wrote on X. Europe is pursuing “civilizational suicide” through regulation and censorship, added Christopher Landau, Rubio’s deputy. And so on. All of this because the EU last week imposed a modest $140mn fine on Elon Musk’s X for transgressions unrelated to free speech. But forget the details. Musk is the EU’s sworn enemy. As is Donald Trump, who this week described Europe as “decaying” and its leaders “weak”.
美国国务卿马尔科•鲁比奥(Marco Rubio)表示，审查美国人网络言论的时代已经结束。“欧盟应该支持言论自由，而不是因为一些垃圾就攻击美国公司，”美国副总统JD•万斯(JD Vance)在X平台上写道。鲁比奥的副手克里斯托弗•兰道(Christopher Landau)补充说，监管和审查正使欧洲走向“文明自杀”。类似言论没完没了，而起因只是欧盟上周对埃隆•马斯克(Elon Musk)的X平台处以数额并不太大的1.4亿美元罚款，而X被指违规的事项与言论自由毫无关系。但细节无须深究。马斯克是欧盟的死对头。唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)也是，他在本周形容欧洲“衰落”，其领导人“软弱”。