Anne Applebaum in the Atlantic:

Until recently, Russia was the most important state seeking to undermine European institutions. Vladimir Putin has long disliked the EU because it restricts Russian companies’ ability to intimidate and bribe European political leaders and companies, and because the EU is larger and more powerful than Russia, whereas European countries on their own are not. Now a group of American oligarchs also want to undermine European institutions, because they don’t want to be regulated—and they may have the American president on their side. Quite soon, the European Union, along with Great Britain and other democracies around the world, might find that they have to choose between their alliance with the United States and their ability to run their own elections and select their own leaders without the pressure of aggressive outside manipulation…

A crunch point is imminent, when the European Commission finally concludes a year-long investigation into X. Tellingly, two people who have advised the commission on this investigation would talk with me only off the record, because the potential for reprisals against them and their organizations—­whether it be online trolling and harassment or lawsuits—­is too great. Still, both advisers said that the commission has the power to protect Europe’s sovereignty, and to force the platforms to be more transparent. “The commission should look at the raft of laws and rules it has available and see how they can be applied,” one of them told me, “always remembering that this is not about taking action against a person’s voice. This is the commission saying that everyone’s voice should be equal.”

At least in theory, no country is obligated to become an electoral Las Vegas, as America has. Global democracies could demand greater transparency around the use of algorithms, both on social media and in the online-advertising market more broadly. They could offer consumers more control over what they see, and more information about what they don’t see. They could enforce their own campaign-funding laws. These changes could make the internet more open and fair, and therefore a better, safer place for the exercise of free speech. If the chances of success seem narrow, it’s not because of the lack of a viable legal framework—­rather it’s because, at the moment, cowardice is as viral as one of Musk’s tweets.

And Musk is only going to get more dangerous, not less.

H/t Tim Harris