Brexit and UK Political Interference by Putin, Russia and Anglo Conservative Allies

Still, there is discussion and analysis of Brexit versus the EU and Trump versus Biden’s Democrat administration, with accusations and allegations being made against Conservative MPs, Ministers, some Labour, media, Anglo right wing grifters, US fossil fueled Atlas – Koch Network think tanks at Tufton, related nativist Tanton Network and Russians, including FSB, diplomats, media and oligarch types.

‘Putin’s Plot Against ‘Great’ Britain – And How He Got Away With It

Peter Jukes tracks Vladimir Putin’s long war against the West and the allies he has found in the pro-Brexit establishment in the plot to derail Britain

Peter Jukes 8 March 2022

The outline of Vladimir Putin’s long war against the West has been brought into stark, almost apocalyptic relief by his brutal invasion of Ukraine, and his mass bombardment of Ukrainian civilians. The Kremlin’s plan to recreate a new Russian Empire has been noted for years in various think tanks and publications, though very few believed it.

Thanks to Observer journalist Carole Cadwalladr we know this is partly due to a ‘Great Information War’, using the fifth battlespace of propaganda and non-linear lies to deceive and distract. But after FBI investigations, congressional intelligence reports and dozens of journalistic investigations, we have confirmation from the US Army itself that Brexit was the first step in Putin’s ‘information blitzkrieg’. 

But why has it taken so long to realise we were under attack? Why was there so little preparation for the biggest war in Europe in 77 years? And why did Britain do so little to counter it? The failure to do so will be seen as a bigger intelligence failure than 9/11. But was there more than wilful blindness in our (in)ability to see and predict the plans of the Kremlin? 

For an answer to that, we have to go back to 2017, and the revelations of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who was tasked to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 US Presidential Election. But before we do so, it’s worth sketching out, in brief, Putin’s now obvious ambition to remove Britain from the EU and derail the transatlantic alliance at the heart of NATO. 

The Plot to Derail Britain

Auseful starting point for Putin’s attack on the weak spots of British democracy is the appointment of Alexander Yakovenko to the role of Ambassador to the United Kingdom in January 2011. Three years earlier, Putin had stepped down to allow Dmytry Medvedev to replace him as President of Russia – an apparently smooth democratic succession based on a promise of modernisation and anti-corruption….

….In the summer of 2012, Sergey Nalobin, a senior diplomat, whose father was an FSB general and whose brother also worked for the Russian intelligence agency, hosted a party at the Russian Embassy establishing the Conservative Friends of Russia. For three years, as donations from Russian oligarchs increased, he befriended senior Conservatives and their contacts, and particularly those associated with what would become the official Vote Leave campaign to exit the EU, including Boris Johnson, John Whittingdale and Matthew Elliott. 

It was Ambassador Yakovenko himself who first made overtures to the burgeoning UK Independence Party. The Ambassador was photographed meeting Nigel Farage in the Russian Embassy 2013, after which Farage was regularly featured on state-sponsored RT (formerly Russia Today) not only as a studio guest, but also in the news segments that covered Farage’s speeches in the European Parliament. 

Two events soon spurred the Russian influence operation into combat mode. In 2014, the bloody Maidan revolution, ousting Viktor Yanukovych as Ukrainian President and derailing Putin’s plans to create a Eurasian Union to match the EU, marked the real beginning of the war in Ukraine.

Putin was now wedded to any strategy that would weaken both the transatlantic alliance and the European Union which opposed his land grab. He began funding Eurosceptic and far-right parties across Europe, in France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. The Internet Research Agency, run by the oligarch who also funded Putin’s mercenary Wagner group army, began to spend $50 million a year supporting Donald Trump’s campaign against Hillary Clinton. 

Meanwhile, David Cameron’s promise to allow a referendum on EU membership during his successful 2015 election campaign presented an opportunity against the US’s major ally. Brexit would become a strategic blow against the EU, separating one of its most powerful economies from the rest of Europe. 

Another Russian Embassy official in London, Counsellor Alexander Udod, a familiar presence at British army and university functions celebrating wartime alliances with the Soviet Union, was tasked with infiltrating the other key Brexit player, UKIP. 

Udod approached two linchpins of the movement, Arron Banks and Andy Wigmore, at the 2015 UKIP conference in Doncaster, when they were planning their Leave.EU campaign. For the next year, from November 2015 through to the election of Donald Trump in 2016, there were multiple meetings with Leave.EU officials and Russian embassy staff, in which preferential access to state monopolies in Russian gold and diamond deals were discussed….

……Given this clear campaign of espionage and infiltration, designed to cause destruction to Britain’s prestige and international effectiveness, why did the security services or the UK Government fail to counter it? And what was the role of Brexit and its senior figures in enabling the country’s self-sabotage? 

Johnson and the Oligarchs

The role of rich UK-based oligarchs, either out of fear or favour, acting on behalf of Putin as a proxy or backchannel, has become a major focus since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. London and the UK was the favoured hub for a rich Russian diaspora, with Soviet-born oligarchs such as Dmytro Firtash, Alexander Lebedev, Oleg Deripaska, Roman Abramovich, and Boris Berezovsky becoming key parts of the commercial, political and cultural scene, and the City of London a major investment and trading hub for Russian companies.

We now know more about the extensive funding of the Conservative Party by Russian oligarchs and their high-level access to politicians. Other senior business figures, who have funded either the Leave campaigns or Brexit think tanks, made their millions in Russia or have major investments there. But, to many, this didn’t seem abnormal. As the influential left-wing commentator Owen Jones once told me: Russian oligarchs had no more impact on Brexit than the non-domiciled media moguls who dominate our newspaper industry

Good point. Except, the owners of the Evening Standard and the Independent are both Russian oligarchs and media moguls, and they have influenced Johnson’s political career.

The London daily, owned by Alexander Lebedev – a former KGB agent in Britain – and his son Evgeny, had an important role to play in promoting Boris Johnson during his time as Mayor. Johnson valued their contribution so highly that he elevated Evgeny Lebedev to the House of Lords as Baron of Hampton and Siberia (requiring Putin’s permission for the title), against security advice.

But did they have any impact on his decision to back Putin’s Brexit plot?

As reported by Catherine Belton, another Soviet-born oligarch and major Conservative donor, Alexander Temerko, claimed that Johnson was finally persuaded to back Brexit by a group of ‘eastern European businessmen’. Temerko refused to elaborate when questioned further by Belton, and there are numerous candidates who could be part of that group. But it certainly looks like the Lebedevs were involved.

According to the wife of Johnson’s fellow campaign figurehead, Michael Gove, Johnson made the final momentous decision to join the Leave campaign at a dinner with Evgeny Lebedev. And though the shock 2016 result did not lead to his assumption of the leadership of the Conservative Party, Johnson did – according to Temerko – spend much of his time as Foreign Secretary drinking wine with him and plotting to replace the new Prime Minister, Theresa May….. 

…..Therefore, the huge public interest question is: how did then Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson react to early revelations of Putin’s great information war?

All the evidence suggests that he engaged in a systematic cover-up.  

Suppressing the Russia Story

I first became personally involved in this story in November 2017. The first Mueller indictment had landed, prosecuting Trump foreign policy aide George Papadopoulos for lying about meeting a purported ‘Russian agent’ in London who had ‘dirt’ on Hillary Clinton and her emails during the presidential campaign of 2016 – the supposed agent being a Maltese professor called Joseph Mifsud. Mifsud claimed to have connections with the Russian Ambassador, Alexander Yakovenko. 

A few weeks later, a source revealed to me that Mifsud had been planning to meet Boris Johnson for a dinner and to talk about Brexit. After protracted discussions with a Foreign Office spokesperson about whether the dinner had actually happened and whether the then Foreign Secretary had met with a person the FBI alleged was a Russian spy, I co-published the revelation with Carole Cadwalladr at the Observer on 4 November 2017. A week later, a picture emerged of Boris Johnson and Joseph Mifsud at a Conservative event in Reading.

Although information from MI6 and intelligence from GCHQ about Russian interference had already been passed on to US authorities at this point – and both those agencies nominally reported to the Foreign Secretary – Johnson told Labour MP Chris Bryant during a select committee hearing in early November 2017, a few weeks after meeting Mifsud, that he’d seen “not a sausage” of Russian interference in British politics. 

And here begins another more damning twist in the cover-up saga. On the day after Johnson’s “not a sausage” remark at the select committee, former Chief Whip Gavin Williamson was appointed Defence Secretary to replace Michael Fallon. In evidence heard in the Royal Courts of Justice in the libel trial of Arron Banks versus Carole Cadwalladr earlier this year, the new Defence Secretary was very well aware of Russian interference in UK elections.

According to Cadwalladr’s sworn testimony, it was Williamson who contacted Richard Tice, the co-chair of the Leave.EU campaign, in November 2017 with warnings about the connections between Russia and his former co-chair Arron Banks…..

The Great Brexit Kompromat

Putin has been in a violent kinetic war with Ukraine since 2014, and launched a more subtle but just as effective hybrid war with the UK, US and Europe since at least then, using online operations, subversion, character assassination and sometimes murder.

All the historic documents show that many in the intelligence community knew this. The Department of Culture, Media and Sport produced a report, ‘Disinformation and Fake News’, which confirmed those suspicions in 2019. Despite the Prime Minister’s attempts to suppress its publication for many months, the ‘Russia Report’ by Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee also confirmed it. And still nobody did anything about it. 

The Russia Report also noted, starkly, that none of Britain’s intelligence agencies had been tasked to look at, let alone protect us from, Putin’s Information Blitzkrieg. Any National Crime Agency and Metropolitan Police investigations have been granted limited remits. Meanwhile, the current Government is planning to remove the autonomy and powers of the Electoral Commission.

At the very time when our defences should have been raised, they have been deliberately dropped. Why?

From their current positions in firm support of Ukraine, it’s clear that most of the current Conservative Government is not pro-Putin, no matter how many roubles he has placed in their campaign coffers through proxies. Some no doubt are compromised personally and financially by the prospect of embarrassing revelations from the Russian security services. But as the sad story above makes clear: Brexit was the great kompromat. 

So many in the political-media class put Britain’s hard exit from the EU above all else, that they were willing to ignore another enemy advancing in their waters. They wanted to own Brexit for themselves, disregarding foreign interference and, like shipwrecked mariners, were still clinging to the rocks that wrecked them. They had created their ultimate villain – the European Union – and Putin’s form of strong-man authoritarianism, replete with ‘anti-woke’ values of family, macho masculinity, and hints of white racial superiority, may have chimed more closely with their own political predilections. 

Meanwhile, for at least five years, Vladimir Putin has been given a free hand to launch a war in Europe with little opposition, amid signals from the British establishment that he could only have taken as compliance and surrender. We waved a white flag. And though we are currently arming the Ukrainians with anti-tank missiles, and promising strong sanctions (which are always behind the rest), we effectively abandoned them during their eight-year-long struggle to hold back the dark Putinist tide of state terror and violence. And now they are paying the price for our appeasement.’

For more blogs and articles on Ageing Democracy, Conservative, EU European Union, Media, Political Strategy and Russia click through:

Radical Right in the West – Fossil Fuel Atlas Koch Network – Nativist Tanton Network – Murdoch Media – Putin’s Russia – Brexit – Trump

Posted on March 6, 2024

Radical right in Anglosphere and Europe is cited here by Scott in Politico, including the ‘great replacement’ and Renaud Camus, climate science and Covid 19 scepticism. 

Symptoms of fossil fuels, oligarchs and <1% supporting corrupt nativist authoritarianism found around (mostly) right wing parties with ageing and low info constituents, informed by talking points prompted by mainstream media, social media and influencers.

Russia Report – Anglo Conservatives Compromised by Russian Interference on EU and Brexit

Return to questions over the U.K. Russia Report, former PM Johnson, Brexit, Conservative government, Russian oligarchs and influence on elections including the EU referendum..

Written by Peter Jukes and originally published January 2023 by ByLine Times, asking questions that are not only unresolved, but actively avoided by the Tories, media and supporters for the advantage of Putin’s Russia and oligarchs, both east and west?

Putin’s Russian Led Corruption of Anglosphere and European Radical Right, Conservatives and Christians

Posted on March 4, 2024

Some years ago Putin and Russia attracted much attention and sympathy from Anglo and European ultra conservative Christians, radical right and free market libertarians for Russia’s corrupt nativist authoritarianism with antipathy towards liberal democracy, the EU and open society.

These phenomena can be observed through visitors and liaisons, but more so by shared talking points and values.  These include family values, pro-life, Christianity, patriarchy, misogyny, white supremacy, traditionalism, dominionism, Evangelicals, anti-LGBT, anti-woke,  anti-elite, anti-gay marriage, traditional wives etc. and corruption, promoted by right wing parties, media, ultra conservative influencers, think tanks and NGOs.

Alexander Downer – Donald Trump aide George Papadopoulos – Russian Influence?

Posted on March 3, 2024

Alexander Downer, former Australian Foreign Minister in Conservative LNP coalition, Australia’s UK High Commissioner till 2018, visitor to Koch Network Heritage Foundation linked Hungarian Danube Institute (with former PM, now GWPF, UK Trade Advisor and Murdochs’ new Fox Board member Tony Abbott), and source for claims by Trump related people of DNC emails stolen by Russians i.e. George Papadopoulos.

‘Just a diplomat doing his job? A new book puts the spotlight back on Australia, Russia and interference in the US election.’

Historical Influence and Links Between Russia and the US Christian Right

Posted on November 6, 2023

We observe in the Anglosphere resurgence in conservative Christian nationalism of the right, becoming a central issue in ageing electorates, more in the US, Russia and Central Europe; both an electoral and policy strategy, plus supporting beliefs.

Some of the Anglo links are former Australian PM and now UK Trade Advisor Tony Abbott with the ADF Alliance Defending Freedom, Donald Trump gaining support of Evangelical and ‘pro-life’ Christians, the fossil fueled Atlas or Koch Network and their influence on the conservative Christian CNP Council for National Policy, Koch influenced Federalist Society promoting ‘pro-life’ choices for SCOTUS on Roe vs. Wade, then sharing similar values with Orban et al. in Central Europe, and Putin in Russia too?

Radical Right in the West – Fossil Fuel Atlas Koch Network – Nativist Tanton Network – Murdoch Media – Putin’s Russia – Brexit – Trump

Radical right in Anglosphere and Europe is cited here by Scott in Politico, including the ‘great replacement’ and Renaud Camus, climate science and Covid 19 scepticism. 

Symptoms of fossil fuels, oligarchs and <1% supporting corrupt nativist authoritarianism found around (mostly) right wing parties with ageing and low info constituents, informed by talking points prompted by mainstream media, social media and influencers.

Overarching have been the Atlas or Koch Network of ‘free market’ think tanks found at Tufton Street London behind Brexit, via IPA, CIS etc. in Australia and led by the Heritage Foundation ‘mothership’ informing the GOP by lobbying and the public by Murdoch led, and Russian influenced, right wing media ‘talking points’ and platforming to mainstream radicalism.

Further, the racism, bigotry or nativism of the Tanton Network is promoted alongside as environmental science when it’s deep seated eugenics masquerading as demography influenced by Malthus, Galton and Grant.

Covid-19 was an opportunity for Koch Network and Murdoch related media, like climate science, to promote denialism, avoidance of science process, health mandates, sensible regulation and centrist liberal democratic governance.

‘From Politico Digital Bridge

‘How the West was radicalized

BY MARK SCOTT

FEBRUARY 1, 2024 

For the last three years, I’ve been tracking a global online movement, borne from the Covid-19 pandemic, that has radicalized millions. It has led to repeated offline violence supported by widespread conspiracy theories, growing distrust of Western democracy and a failure from politicians and officials to respond. I’m not going to lie; it’s become a weird fascination for me.

This is my effort to unpack what’s going on:

— A loosely affiliated network of increasingly radicalized online users has created sophisticated global connections via social media that have repeatedly spilled into the real world.

— The Covid-19 pandemic was the perfect crucible to jumpstart ties between disaffected people eager to find a greater meaning for how the world was changing around them.

— National security agencies across the West have struggled to respond, fearful of overstepping their mandate, unsure of how best to track online radicalization, and limited in what resources they have available.

WELCOME TO THE NEW WORLD ORDER

PRAISE FOR FARMERS’ PROTESTS IN FRANCE. Claims the Israel-Hamas conflict is an attempt by global elites to start World War III. Graphic attacks on Taylor Swift for her alleged role in keeping Donald Trump from regaining the White House. Three different events, three different countries. But behind each one lies a loose network of Covid-19 conspiracy theorists, hundreds of thousands of disgruntled social media users, and a smattering of ultra-violent extremist groups who have joined forces to create a global movement with one clear goal: to overturn the established order.

“It’s like a nuclear bomb,” Imran Ahmed, chief executive at the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit organization that tracks such online activity and who has consulted with Western governments about how to combat violence resulting from online conspiracy theories, told me. “This is the creation of unlimited amounts of communication and the potential for it to go super viral and reach billions of people for zero cost. We have a limited window for getting people aware of the problem.”

I first came across this movement in the early days of Covid-19 (more on that below). At first, the groups — spread across Telegram, Facebook, TikTok, Discord and Reddit — felt different. They spoke multiple languages. They focused on domestic grievances. They included QAnon followers, far-right political operatives, and everyday social media users. Yet as the months turned into years, strange connections began to pop up. So-called Proud Boy American white nationalists started to talk about local Swedish politics. French left-leaning Yellow Vests activists quickly became experts in the American so-called deep state conspiracy against Trump.

What happened, based on Digital Bridge’s tracking of millions of social media posts across seven social networks primarily in North America, Europe, Australia and Latin America over the last three years, was the epitome of what the internet does best: bring people together. Often isolated online users found like-minded people who shared a similar worldview. One where Bill Gates is a worldwide enemy seeking to use the global public health crisis to enrich himself. One where “elites” want to suppress the little man (and it’s almost always a man). One where Vladimir Putin is heralded for his fight against Pizzagate-style “pedophiles” in Ukraine.

Not everyone involved in this bottom-up digital movement holds radicalized views. But extremist groups — the so-called Proud Boys white nationalist group in the United States, the Querdenken anti-lockdown brigade in Germany, and the English Defense League, an Islamophobic political group, in the United Kingdom — have embedded themselves into Telegram channels, Facebook groups and Discord online messaging communities to recruit would-be followers to their cause. Picture an online atmosphere like the “Star Wars” Mos Eisley cantina, where white nationalists routinely rub shoulders with “red-pilled” soccer moms who believe Covid-19 is an attempt to sterilize children.

This isn’t just an online phenomenon. As the ties between these disparate groups became stronger — fueled by multilingual influencers and auto-translation plug-ins for social media — they have used the digital movement to organize offline protests. That includes jumping on global political events like last year’s political violence in Brazil or skyrocketing energy prices in Germany to mount like-minded protests elsewhere. This is directed, primarily, by Telegram channels, where more active members of the radicalized movement share viral memes to galvanize support, suggest how to frame potential protests, and promote similar offline activities in other countries to demonstrate that people’s concerns are widespread.

Tragically, this can also end in violence. Repeated shootings — in Germany, the U.S., New Zealand and Slovakia — have all shown signs of the assailants having become radicalized, in part because of their involvement in this global movement. Many posted online manifestos — still readily accessible within this digital community and reviewed by Digital Bridge — that are riddled with references to the so-called Great Replacement Theory, a popularly held racist belief the West is being overrun by migrants; antisemitic tirades also prevalent within this movement; and calls-to-arms for others to follow their example. Sadly, these shooters are viewed by many as heroes for the cause.

THE ROLE OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

JAKUB, A 23-YEAR-OLD STUDENT FROM COLOGNE, did not have a good pandemic. Stuck at home with little to do, the German, whose last name Digital Bridge is withholding to protect his identity, turned to social media for comfort. Within months, Jakub, who has now left the movement, was engrossed in a conspiracy-laden online world where falsehoods like the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” project — aimed at reinventing the global economy for a post-Covid world — was, in fact, a ruse by global elites to use vaccines to enslave the wider population.  “It was addictive,” he told me. “The way people talked with each other, it felt like a community that spoke directly to me.” 

As countries scrambled to counter a staggering public health crisis, existing conspiracy groups — some, like those associated with the anti-vaccine movement, dated back to the early days of the internet — seized on Covid-19 as a means to recruit new converts. White nationalists quickly blamed immigrants for spreading the disease and accused governments of prolonging the crisis for their own gain. Right-wing politicians, including France’s Marine Le Pen and former U.S. President Donald Trump, accused Muslims and other minority groups of profiting from the pandemic. 

“The impact the Covid pandemic had on global extremist mobilization, I really do think, was a total game changer,” said Milo Comerford, head of counter-extremism policy and research at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based think tank. “It provided people with a compelling and elaborate worldview that made it clear who the enemy was, that gave a clear focus for whom to blame and, at its most extreme, provided justification for violence and attacks on minorities and harassment of officials and public health workers.”

While Covid-19 has, thankfully, regressed in people’s minds, its effects in fast-tracking connections between once-separate online communities cannot be overstated. It represented a perfect storm for mass digital mobilization. Almost all of us were stuck at home, and often — like Jakub — turned to social media for meaning. The once-in-a-lifetime moment fostered simmering discontent about government overreach and the perception of those in power seeking to control people’s lives. Faced with such global uncertainty, many became isolated, depressed and eager for simple answers — prime territory for potential radicalization.

Into this void, social media offered a solution. In Germany, online influencers like Oliver Janich and Evan Herman garnered audiences in the hundreds of thousands via Telegram after repeatedly sharing Covid-19 conspiracy theories that the country’s politicians were to blame for the pandemic. In the U.S., gun-toting protesters descended on local school board meetings in opposition to mask mandates, and then uploaded these videos onto TikTok. In the U.K., the so-called White Rose anti-Covid group — named after a similar movement created in opposition to Nazi Germany — became intertwined with the country’s far right, routinely sharing conspiracy theories including, for example, Covid-19 vaccines harming children.

“It is a war. And it is war on our children. So Fight!!” said a British Telegram user within a White Rose group after sharing a video of an anti-lockdown protest organized by Tommy Robinson, a local far-right activist. These messages no longer stay local. German Telegram users regularly cheer American acts of resistance against alleged government control. 

British far-right extremists on Facebook spread obscure anti-vax theories from Australia. French-speaking Canadian Twitter users translate anti-lockdown propaganda from America and repost it widely with counterparts in France.

What the pandemic did more than anything was cement ties between like-minded people across the West — bonds that have continued despite the waning of the pandemic. It built a coherent worldview for those seeking to explain the unexplainable. It also cemented well-defined communication channels that, on a dime, can jump on world events to flood the zone with conspiracy-laden material. That’s what happened in 2022, when an obscure Covid-related truckers’ protest in Canada garnered global attention. Within days, social media users, in multiple languages, had banded together in support of this protest, using coordinated messaging developed via online platforms, to rally global backing, including similar offline protests in other major Western capitals. That pattern has repeated ever since.

NATIONAL SECURITY (LACK OF) RESPONSE

NATIONAL SECURITY OFFICIALS KNOW THIS IS A PROBLEM. My discussions with many of these Western policymakers, who were granted anonymity to describe governments’ responses, have tracked the rise of this bottom-up online community since the Covid-19 pandemic. There is a realization that many aren’t truly radicalized — but that, buried within this movement, there are lone-wolf actors or coordinated groups that do represent a direct threat to public safety.

But how to find that needle in a haystack? Officials acknowledge it’s a difficult balance between legitimately tracking extremist groups and overreaching on surveilling citizens who, while often sharing distasteful views, have done nothing illegal. Many national security agencies have limited ability to monitor domestic groups, and therefore have turned to tracking those outside their borders. Germany has gone the furthest with its domestic surveillance of would-be extremists, though that’s an outlier because of that country’s own history of radicalization.

For now, the Western national security apparatus is not set up to keep tabs on this cross-border movement in ways that don’t undermine people’s fundamental rights of free speech and privacy. So far, there’s a reliance on platforms to do the heavy lifting. Yet over the past two years, that has become harder than ever, since many in this radicalized movement have left more mainstream platforms like Facebook and YouTube for fringe alternatives like Telegram and Rumble with little, if any, content-moderation oversight.

WONK OF THE WEEK

THE PHILOSOPHICAL UNDERPINNING FOR THIS MOVEMENT, in large part, comes from French far-right thinker Renaud Camus and his so-called Great Replacement theory, a belief that Western “white” civilization is slowly being replaced by “non-white” populations.

His treaty — in French known as Grand Replacement — was published in 2011, and focuses on the deconstruction of primarily French culture and civilization predominantly by Muslims living in the country. His racist beliefs subsequently have become the calling card for those within this online movement who attack outsiders — almost exclusively migrants — for allegedly denigrating Western society.

“The destruction of Europe’s Europeans and their civilization is the crime against humanity of the 21st Century,” he wrote on X this week.

THEY SAID WHAT, NOW?

“The pandemic created a set of conditions that seems almost tailor-made for violent extremists seeking to advance their work,” Nicholas Rasmussen, former head of Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, told U.S. lawmakers. “Between health restrictions, economic impacts, social isolation, and increased political polarization, it is clear that the pandemic has exacerbated existing cleavages and anxieties across society.“

For more related blogs and article on Ageing Democracy, Climate Change, COVID-19, Environment, EU European Union, Eugenics, Fossil Fuel Pollution, Koch Network, Libertarian Economics, Media, Populist Politics and Tanton Network click through:

French Farmers, Truckers and Covid Freedom Rallies Astroturfing vs. Science, Environment and EU European Union?

Posted on March 5, 2024

Farmers protesting in France and probably elsewhere are more about astroturfing by Big Ag to oppose the EU European’s Union Green Agenda, threats to CAP Common Agricultural Policy, pesticides and fossil fuels; does not seem to be a genuine issue of small farmers especially with indirect support of Le Pen?

Further, not only have similar protests occurred on the border of Poland and Ukraine, and other points, with allegations of Russian influence, there seems to be resonance with the US fossil fuel Koch Network ‘freedom rallies’ globally against Covid science, vaccinations and health mandates vs. centrist governments.

Conspiracy of Denial – COVID-19 and Climate Science

Posted on August 24, 2020

Some would not be surprised with the doubts and confusion being created round the COVID-19 crisis, especially by those wanting all economic activity to continue and ignore the human costs. 

However, much of this agitprop, astro-turfing and junk science used by non experts has much in common with the information, media and political techniques used by radical right libertarian think tanks funded by the fossil fuel sector and related media, to influence society on climate science to avoid constraints and preserve income streams, with some eugenics in the background

Anglosphere Oligarchs – Koch Atlas Network Think Tanks

Posted on March 27, 2023

We have heard much of supposed ‘libertarian’ think tanks or PR outfits in the Anglosphere influencing policy, especially of the right, via media and lobbying, euphemistically known as ‘Koch Network’ or the ‘Kochtopus’ with a fondness for fossil fuels and climate science denial.

New Yorker journalist Jane Mayer investigated several years ago for her book ‘Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right’ (2017) which included insight into oligarch donors Mellon-Scaife, Olin, Bradley, DeVos and Coors.

Radical Libertarian Disinformation Machine – Koch Network by Nancy MacLean

Posted on October 19, 2022

Many nations, at least in the Anglosphere, have experienced disinformation whether related to climate science or fossil fuels, Covid science, education or democracy, and of late witnessed ‘Trussonomics’ in the UK, another version of Buchanan’s ‘Kochonomics’ or ‘radical right libertarian’ ideology.

However, where does this disinformation come from?

According to historian Nancy Maclean it’s a ‘deny and delay’ strategy of Koch Bros. or Koch Network which includes astroturfing, ‘Dark Money’, creating research, gerrymandering, SLAPPs, universities, Christians and conservatives.

Monbiot – Radical Right Libertarians – Fossil Fuel Think Tanks – Koch & Tanton Networks

Posted on January 14, 2024

Good overview via Argentina by George Monbiot in The Guardian ‘What links Rishi Sunak, Javier Milei and Donald Trump? The shadowy network behind their policies’ and concerning dynamics around national politics, media, think tanks and governance.

The ‘junk tanks’ he talks of, observed in Anglosphere and globally are Atlas – Koch Network and another that shares donors in the US, Tanton Network. The former does low tax, low regulation and small government while the latter is faux environmental via demographics, population and migration ‘research’.

Immigration Restriction – Population Control – Tanton Network

Posted on September 1, 2022

Below are excerpts from an article by Brooke Binkowski in Unicorn Riot outlining the history of the population control movement of Tanton Network which informs immigration in the Anglosphere and parts of Europe.

Eugenics, Border Wars & Population Control: The Tanton Network

By Brooke Binkowski, Contributor  August 22, 2022

Nearly everything Americans hear about the U.S.-Mexico border is wrong, and it’s very likely because of one relatively small but extremely well-funded and influential group of American racists.

On July 5, 2022, a group of officials in Texas held a curious press conference. It consisted of a handful of politicians from across the state praying and insisting, using openly white supremacist rhetoric about immigrant “hordes” and “invasions”, making terrifying claims, without a shred of evidence, that the United States was living through a disastrous attack on its very integrity at the hands of refugees and asylum seekers attempting to cross into the country.

Misleading statements about the security of the border have been escalating for years.

Madison Grant – Eugenics, Heredity, Class, Immigration, Great Replacement, Conservation and Nazis

Posted on May 3, 2022

In recent years we have observed the rise of white nationalism, alt &/or far right, nativism, eugenics, neo-Nazis etc. in the Anglosphere and Europe, often underpinned by divisive dog whistle politics through legacy media. For one to understand modern Anglo &/or European nativism, the past of eugenics and conservation in the US especially, the history of Madison Grant starting over a century ago, needs to be scrutinised. Following is a brief but incomplete overview from relevant literature, including Grant’s own writings.

SLAPP Cases – Constraining Media Freedom and Freedom of Speech in Balkans, EU, UK, Australia

SLAPP: Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, is another tactic used by wealthy oligarchs and the powerful to avoid being held to account, stymying freedom of speech, burying inconvenient truths and bankrupting defendants. 

This phenomenon has become especially apparent in the UK with both local and/or non resident plaintiffs using libel actions for public criticism, Australia by conservative Ministers also & the Balkans against NGOs and civil society.

Following are three articles of past year explaining the impact and solutions in Balkan Insight’s ‘SLAPP Cases Targeting Many Public Actors Besides Journalist – Report’, ByLine Times ‘ON TRIAL Freedom of the Press’ and Open Democracy UK in ‘The UK’s reputation management industry is destroying journalism. It must be stopped’.

Very clear that the powers that be in many constituencies or nations have a strong interest in avoiding transparency and empowered media to inform society?

From Balkan Insight: ‘SLAPP Cases Targeting Many Public Actors Besides Journalists – Report

Matea Grgurinovic Zagreb BIRN March 17, 2022

New report by Coalition against SLAPPs in Europe shows that these lawsuits are being used to silence not only journalists but activists, civil society organizations and academics.

A new report by the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe, CASE, “Shutting Out Criticism: How SLAPPs Threaten European Democracy”, published on Wednesday, says although journalists are most likely targets, these lawsuits also target activists, human rights defenders and academics.

“Journalists are targeted with SLAPPs because they bring information to light while activists, civil society organisations, and academics are confronted with SLAPPs because they challenge the status quo,” the report says.

Its data also show that the number of so-called Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation in Europe is growing, and that claimants are “becoming increasingly creative”.

The report recalls the example of Elitech against Friends of the Earth, FoE, Croatia and the civic initiative, Srdj je nas (“Srdj is ours”).

In 2013, the citizens’ initiative, together with the Croatian Architects Association, requested the Constitutional Court to assess the legality of the construction of a luxury resort and golf course on Srđ hill by the multinational manufacturing company Elitech. FoE Croatia placed a billboard criticising the project in a public place.

“FoE Croatia subsequently faced two different lawsuits: civil defamation against the organisation, with a request for a gagging order; and the president and two vice-presidents of FoE Croatia were criminally prosecuted for libel,” the report recalls, adding that this case “shows how SLAPPs are used as a means of silencing those speaking out about a shared concern”.

The report stresses the “chilling effect” that SLAPPs have, meaning the financial burden, the time defendants have to take to prepare their legal defence, the effort to remember details of events that often took place years previously, as well as the mental and emotional toll.

“Many described the process of dealing with the SLAPP as more taxing and intimidating than actually receiving the legal threat,” the report adds……

…..Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation are civil claims filed against individuals or organisations. Businesses and government officials often file them against those that oppose them on issues of public concern, with a view to silencing them. They are widely seen as a tool of “modern censorship”.

A SLAPP can be based on a range of legal theories, including defamation, data protection, privacy, business torts and data protection, and often exploit gaps in procedural protections that are often highly specific to the jurisdiction in question.’

From ByLine Times: ‘ON TRIAL Freedom of the Press 

Manasa Narayanan and Daisy Steinhardt

14 February 2022

Focusing on the current cases against journalists Carole Cadwalladr and Tom Burgis, Manasa Narayanan and Daisy Steinhardt explore how libel laws allow the rich and powerful to silence journalism.

Journalism and the justice system are currently intertwined, with two major defamation cases in progress – one against investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr; and another against Tom Burgis, investigations correspondent for the Financial Times. There is also the extradition case of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

The two defamation claims are particularly significant because of their implications for ‘SLAPP’ (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) cases and public interest journalism in the UK.

SLAPP are essentially a form of legal harassment, whereby certain laws and judicial frameworks are exploited by rich and/or politically well-connected individuals and organisations to the detriment of their critics – usually journalists, activists and NGO workers.

One of the main vehicles of SLAPP is defamation – also called libel – which is a charge accusing someone of writing something false in a way that harms a person’s public image and causes ‘serious harm’ to their reputation. In effect, political and economic elites can use highly expensive and time-consuming defamation suits against their critics – effectively silencing them. 

Cadwalladr was slapped with a libel case by the millionaire businessman Arron Banks in 2019. As of 2018, estimates of his wealth ranged from £100 million to £250 million. Aside from being wealthy, Banks has also been involved in British politics in recent years. As one of the founders of the Leave.EU referendum campaign, he played a pivotal role in the 2016 leave vote and is known for his close links to Nigel Farage.

While Cadwalladr has, over the years, written several pieces about Banks and the Brexit Referendum – with a particular focus on the Leave campaigns – it was a TED talk, during which she made a passing remark about Banks’ “covert relationship with the Russian Government” and an accompanying tweet about the talk that has been the subject of this costly legal suit.

Meanwhile, Burgis faces two lawsuits brought by the Kazakh mining company, Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC). In both his reporting and his book, Kleptopia, Burgis talks about kleptocracy – a term used to describe a system in which autocratic states, such as Kazakhstan, use their power and links in places such as London to safeguard their wealth. This is the context in which Burgis reported on the ENRC and now faces libel charges – one against him and his book publisher HarperCollins, and another against him and the Financial Times. 

Both of these cases have raised serious concerns about press freedom. 

When Cadwalladr’s case went to court last month, 19 organisations, including Reporters Without Borders, declared their support for her – publicly calling Banks’ legal pursuit a SLAPP suit, and reiterating that it was “aimed at intimidating and silencing Cadwalladr” for her journalism. 

In Burgis’ case, 15 such organisations released a joint statement to “condemn lawsuits brought by ENRC” against him, HarperCollins and the Financial Times.

Cadwalladr’s case is particularly striking given that, despite writing extensively about Banks and the leave campaign for years for major newspapers, and having made the supposedly defamatory claim in a TED talk, she has been targeted as an individual – leaving her with no institutional support.

Indeed, even though Cadwalladr made claims similar to those made in the TED talk in the Observer newspaper in 2018, Banks did not sue her on that basis. The Observer article had undergone a vetting process by an editorial team, while the production of the TED talk saw the involvement of its own team. Yet, Cadwalladr has been singled out and pursued relentlessly as an individual.

Other organisations, including Channel 4 and the BBC, have conducted extensive investigations into Arron Banks, but do not figure in his fight against disrepute. 

One of the defining characteristics of a SLAPP is the stark disparity between the economic and political capital of the claimant and the defendant. This can be seen when comparing Banks to Cadwalladr. While Banks has vast resources to launch a defamation suit, Cadwalladr has been forced to crowdfund her legal costs and is likely to have to declare bankruptcy if she loses.

While the powerful do not have much to lose, for journalists like Carole Cadwalladr and Tom Burgis this is not just about money – their careers and livelihoods are on the line.

Even if they win their respective cases, the innumerable court trips and legal meetings will have drained them both financially and emotionally, preventing them from carrying out their work as they otherwise would.

The ENRC has launched a total of 18 legal proceedings against journalists, lawyers and other critics since 2013, including one against the Serious Fraud Office.’ 

From Open Democracy UK: ‘The UK’s reputation management industry is destroying journalism. It must be stopped

Protecting media freedom and tackling corruption are intrinsically linked. The UK needs to address both to achieve either effectively

Susan Coughtrie 19 July 2021, 7.33am

This month, British newspapers reported that an Azerbaijani millionaire DJ, Mikaela Jav, and her husband, Suleyman Javadov, had been forced to forfeit £4 million to the National Crime Agency, after admitting the funds had entered the UK illegally through a complex money laundering system known as the ‘Azerbaijan Laundromat’.

Pictures of the Javadovs’ lavish lifestyle, including four multi-million pound properties in London, ran alongside commentary pointing out that the NCA actually reclaimed £10 million less than was originally under question…..

…..However, the fact that a media outlet had to pursue an expensive, two-year legal battle in order to prevent what the judge in the case ruled would have been a “disproportionate interference with the principle of open justice” should spark some alarming questions for those involved in media freedom, transparency and anti-corruption efforts in the UK.

Indeed, this case intersects with a much larger, more troubling story – how the UK’s financial and legal systems not only service at best ‘questionable’ money flows originating from countries with less-than-stellar democratic records, but that the country is also home to legal and reputation laundering services that can be utilised to suppress public scrutiny into, or whitewash over, potential wrongdoing…..

…..If the UK government wants to deliver on its commitments to protect media freedom – both at an international level, through its leadership of the Global Media Freedom Coalition, and domestically, having established the National Committee on the Safety of Journalists – then it must also fully examine how illicit finance and corruption feeds into violations against media freedom, both here and abroad.

Despite the UK parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee’s damning findings in its July 2020 Russia Report, regarding the existence of a ‘London Laundromat’, supported by a “growth industry of enablers”, the UK appears to be backsliding on anti-corruption commitments. This is in contrast to the US, where President Biden’s administration has made a pointed shift to address corruption as a core national security interest….

This type of ‘positive’ reputation management comes alongside a far more insidious issue: attempts to remove ‘uncomfortable information’ from the public domain or prevent it from getting there in the first place. The case against Radu is part of a growing body of evidence pointing to the use of legal intimidation and SLAPPs (strategic lawsuits against public participation). A term originally devised in the US, SLAPPs are legal actions taken against journalists, as well as whistleblowers, activists or others speaking out in the public interest.

Thus, lawyers can easily threaten legal action on behalf of super-wealthy clients. But journalists, especially freelancers or small media outlets, find it difficult to mount the financial resources and legal expertise to respond. The reputation managers’ goal is not necessarily to win in court, but rather to intimidate, to consume the financial and psychological resources of the target, so they simply give up. If successful, they can create an information vacuum about the initial subject matter as well as the fact a legal challenge took place.

In a survey of 63 investigative journalists reporting on financial crime and corruption in 41 countries, conducted by the UK’s Foreign Policy Centre last year, three quarters of respondents reported receiving communications threatening legal action as a result of their work. Moreover, the UK was the leading international source of these threats, with almost as many originating from there as from EU countries and the US combined……

….More than 20 organisations, part of an informal UK anti-SLAPP coalition, have now launched a policy paper on countering legal intimidation and SLAPPs. The paper calls for a formal parliamentary inquiry to examine this issue in the UK, including the impact on those subjected to these tactics as well as the knock-on effect on public scrutiny, including investigations into corruption.

There is a need for legislative and regulatory reform, potentially in the shape of a UK Anti-SLAPP law. This would follow similar initiatives that have been advanced in the US and Canada, and in the European Union, which is examining proposals for an Anti-SLAPP Directive.

Stronger leadership is needed in the UK to tackle both the safety of journalists and the fight against corruption. A first step would be to recognise the symbiotic nature between the two. You cannot effectively protect and promote media freedom without first addressing the financial and legal systems that support attacks against it.’

For more blogs and articles related to Australian politics, EU European Union, Data Protection, Media, Political Strategy and Russia.

Anglosphere Legacy Media: White Nativist and Libertarian Propaganda for Ageing Conservative Voters – Australia, Brexit & Trump

Anglosphere – Radical Right Libertarian Socioeconomics and Authoritarianism

EU European Union Model for Future Global Standards and Regulation

EU European Union Model for Future Global Standards and Regulation

The EU European Union has attracted much criticism and pessimism on its future, mostly by outsiders and e.g. the Anglosphere with Brexit, being encouraged by ideologues and selected corporate entities plus donors, in the US, with libertarian economic interests trying to avoid constraints of trade blocs like the EU.

In fact, according to the following essay by Ullrich Fichtner with excerpts and overview from Der Spiegel magazine, and keeping in mind the local, regional, national and global positives, often via the ‘Brussels Effect’, the EU should have a both an economically and socially productive future; this essay should be compulsory reading for decision makers in the Anglo world.

‘From Brussels to the Rest of the World – How Europe Became a Model for the 21st Century

An Essay by Ullrich Fichtner

Despite its long list of crises in recent years – including the most recent vaccine snafu – the European Union has become a global pacesetter. Its laws and regulations have established global norms. This has made the bloc a 21st century model.

I. Dog Whistling the EU, Europe and the Continent

………The Continent has been portrayed as a barren mountain range of EU summits, as a garbage dump of files, as a befouled land of plenty with lakes of milk and wine. Europe in caricature is a house of cards, a ramshackle home, a burning hut, a crumbling temple. It is always in ruins……

……the EU often looks as broken as its worst enemies describe it. Cyprus single-handedly blocking European sanctions against the Belarusian dictatorship. The governments of Hungary and Poland ruthlessly undermining the rule of law. Agonizing negotiations on a common refugee policy for the Continent repeatedly concluding in shabby nothingness. A common agricultural policy – one that has been wrong for decades – cemented once again. The procurement of coronavirus vaccines descending into acrimonious, backbiting chaos, fueled by the national interests of 27 member states. In our imaginations, that is truly not what a global power looks like.

II.  The EU Continues

There have been several times in the past 10 or 12 years that the EU has been so close to the abyss that the fall seemed inevitable. The great financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 became the Greek crisis and a European sovereign debt crisis. Significant doubts were raised about the basic structures of the federation of nations – and they weren’t just coming from the right-wing populists emerging across the Continent. Financial crises became identity crises and refugee crises spiraled into existential crises. In 2016, the decision by the British to leave the EU seemed like the final nail in the coffin of a historic experiment that the peoples of Europe never learned to love.

That the situation has since become less fraught is not least due to the fact that Brexit, by not destroying it, has actually saved the EU for the time being…..

III.  Top Three Global Market

……. In terms of the EU and its 27 members, it doesn’t really matter which metric you apply: It always ranks among the top three in the world by all criteria. It is even ahead of the United States in many fields and will be able to outperform China in many respects for decades to come.

The EU is the most important export market for the U.S., India, South Africa and Russia. It is the second-largest market for China and Brazil and the third largest for Japan and South Korea.

IV.  Brussels Effect on Global Standards

Every day, miraculous things are happening around the globe of which most Europeans take no notice. Technology companies in California build their devices according to EU regulations….. ……. Regional blocs of countries in South America are organizing themselves along the lines of the EU. Laws drafted in Europe are adopted almost verbatim into national law in countries around the world…..

…..Europe’s view of data protection, as laid out in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), has quickly become a global standard that no company and no country can ignore….. America’s 500 largest companies are continually spending billions of dollars to implement EU rules, and the situation is no different for the largest Asian, African and South American companies. The smartest among them are already working to reduce their carbon emissions, with an eye on the “carbon tax,” that the EU has been working on for years.

These examples lead to the equally unbelievable and correct conclusion that globalization today is actually a “Europeanization”………

V. Good EU and Global Standards and Regulations

A global player like today’s Europe has never existed in this form in the history of the world. By regulating the affairs of its internal market step by step, the EU is formulating globally effective standards along the way. Whether it’s chemicals, hazardous waste, hormone-treated meat, electronic waste, emissions standards, animal testing, antitrust, privacy, crop protection, competition or air pollution control – the EU is always somehow already there.

It sets standards and criteria worldwide based on scientific findings and equipped with recognized scientific, legal and also moral competence – even in areas where, by law, it would actually have no say. It’s not a stretch to say that the European Union makes the world a little bit better every day, a little bit cleaner, a little bit healthier, safer and more sustainable…..

VI. Smart Power

The distinction between a “soft” and “hard” power originates from Joseph Nye, the Harvard professor  ………  hard power is an absolute necessity, but adds that military power is a blunt instrument. For today’s powers, he wrote, the point is to combine soft and hard power to create “smart” power.

Nye argues that missiles and warships don’t help fight global warming, protect privacy or regulate banking……

VII. Foreign Policies

The current EU high representative for foreign affairs, Josep Borrell of Spain, has compared today’s EU foreign policy with the introduction of the euro, when – for a time – the old national currencies existed side-by-side with the new European currency. For the moment, Borrell told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper shortly before taking office a little over a year ago, EU foreign policy must coexist with national foreign policies. The point, though, is that the intersections will grow over time….

VIII. Future of the EU

Around 20 years ago, professors from Germany and elsewhere issued incessant criticism of the euro and the appalling consequences it would have for the prosperity of everyone in Europe. Now that the euro has established itself as the world’s second-most reliable hard currency, it is a position that has been essentially abandoned today.

Nor has the eternal fear of a Brussels kraken sucking all the democracy out of the member states borne out. And despite myriad predictions of the EU’s demise, that hasn’t happened either….

…..But the European Union – and in this sense it is a lot like the United Nations – is often only scrutinized for its shortcomings. The EU is frequently judged solely on its ability to act quickly and too rarely on its ability to pursue a goal step by step, with calm and perseverance. And people also often forget that the EU is a federation of 27 countries. When they are united, Europe is strong. When they disagree, even the best EU is of little help.

In the long term – meaning years and decades – the EU will be judged by whether it achieves its objectives, and it only ever sets grand goals for itself. Preserving peace, saving the world’s climate, ending the destruction of nature, protecting people, increasing prosperity, improving lives, seeking happiness.….’

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EU Digital Services – BigTech and Legacy Media – NewsCorp

Presently the EU is looking into more regulation on digital services and markets, even playing field for all, limits to expansion by Big Tech, hate speech, fines, policing platforms, etc.; backgrounded by talk in Australia of regulating Big Tech more.  

The latter is not so related to the EU’s actions but is more about Rupert Murdoch’s legacy media in NewsCorp, and its overbearing influence on its peers, politics and society in Australia, while losing money and asking for subsidies.  Nowadays it is demanding constraints on Big Tech i.e. payment for NewsCorp’s (plus other oligopoly legacy media) ‘entertainment content’ and partisan political agit prop, while still attacking the public broadcaster the ABC, restricting the NBN National Broadband Network, unclear tax arrangements and having a near monopoly presence in Australia.

The following gives an overview and summary of EU initiatives from Politico:

Europe rewrites rulebook for digital age – The bloc wants to impose fines of up to 10 percent of companies’ revenue if they abuse their position in digital markets.

Many of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies could face blockbuster fines under new proposals from the European Union announced Tuesday aimed at boosting digital competition and protecting people from online harm.

The announcement represents a watershed moment for Ursula von der Leyen’s Commission, which has made so-called “technological sovereignty,” or efforts to bolster the bloc’s role in digital markets, a central piece of its legislative agenda.

Under the proposals, known as the Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act, large online platforms like Google, Amazon and Facebook will face new limits on how they can expand their online empires or face levies of up to 10 percent of their global revenue — potentially billions of euros — for unfairly hamstringing smaller rivals.

In the most egregious cases, EU regulators would be granted stronger powers to break up companies that flouted the bloc’s new digital rulebook.

Brussels also outlined separate fines of up to six percent of annual revenue for Big Tech companies — those with at least 45 million users across the 27-country bloc — that fail to limit how illegal material, everything from hate speech to counterfeit products, can spread across their networks…..

Digital Markets Act: Dos and don’ts

The centerpiece of Europe’s digital plans is aimed at boosting online competition in a world dominated by Silicon Valley.

As part of the proposals, the Digital Markets Act will impose new obligations on so-called “gatekeepers,” or online players that determine how other companies interact with online users, to ensure these platforms do not stop others from competing for users. The rules will cover companies offering digital services like online search, social networking, video-sharing platforms, cloud computing, internet messaging services, online operating systems, online marketplaces and advertising products.

Failure to live by these rules could lead to hefty fines up to 10 percent of a company’s global revenue, or — in the worst cases — threats to break up firms that repeatedly break the new rules, a provision that is already baked into EU law…..

Digital Services Act: Greater responsibility

Brussels also unveiled a sweeping reboot of how large platforms must police their platforms for illegal material — rules that have not been updated in two decades.

Under those separate proposals, known as the Digital Services Act, online platforms will have to do more to limit the spread of illegal content and goods. The United Kingdom published similar proposals earlier on Tuesday, while the United States is mulling its own changes to so-called content liability to force platforms to further police what is posted or sold online.

The largest platforms like Facebook, Google and Amazon will have to provide regulators and outside groups with greater access to internal data, and appoint independent auditors who will determine if these firms are compliant with the new rules.

That will require these companies to carry out yearly risk assessments over how they are stopping illegal content and goods from spreading on their networks. National regulators will be granted more powers, including the ability to levy fines of up to six percent of a firm’s annual revenue if companies flout the regulations…..

For EU officials, Tuesday’s announcements mark their latest attempt to create greater competition in digital markets and protect people online from a wave of illegal material. 

But many European politicians, tech executives and civil society groups still disagree over how best to promote those goals while still encouraging the bloc’s online economy to compete with those of the U.S. and China.

That balance — Europe pushing for greater control over the online world while also boosting its digital economy — will now take center stage.

“Now, the U.S., us, the Australians, the Japanese are part of a global conversation about how to balance things because the most important thing here is that with size comes responsibility,” Vestager said. “All business operating in Europe — they can be big ones, they can be small ones — can freely and fairly compete online just as they do offline.”

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