By J.B. Shurk - December 18, 2025

After the European Commission levied a several-hundred-million-dollar fine on Elon Musk and his social media platform X earlier this month, journalist Michael Shellenberger wrote a damning post in which he excoriated Europe’s rank censorship and state-sponsored propaganda. He accused the commission of engaging “in a deception campaign aimed at confusing” Europeans and Americans into thinking that European elites’ “goal” is anything other than “to censor the American people.”

Shellenberger pointed out that Musk’s fine came while European governments are demanding backdoor access to all private text messages (under the pretense of combatting the transmission of child pornography) and creating a so-called “Democracy Shield” of government-funded “fact-checkers” that enables “censorship by proxy.” He also noted that the European Commission announced the fine to coincide with the rollout of the Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy, in which President Trump makes this promise: “We will oppose elite-driven, anti-democratic restrictions on core liberties in Europe, the Anglosphere, and the rest of the democratic world, especially among our allies.”

Shellenberger put two and two together to make a provocative observation: “The EU is now in direct violation of the NATO Treaty,” which “requires member states to have free speech and free and fair elections. France and Germany are actively and illegally preventing political candidates from running for office for ideological reasons, namely their opposition to mass migration. And the Romanian high court, with the support of the European Commission, nullified election results under the thin and unproven pretext of Russian interference, after a nationalist and populist presidential candidate won.”

As a parting shot, Shellenberger accused the European political class of . . .

[SNIP]