Did Chancellor Merkel today stand up and offer criticism to Twitter....that they shouldn't have the power to decide who is allowed to exercise free speech?
Well...yeah.
This is over the Twitter and social media developments of the past week...banning President Trump.
My general take? I think the Germans (particularly the Berlin political establishment) are gazing over how social media turned on so many angles in less than three days.
They avoided saying 'CCP-like-trends', or a number of very harsh phrases....but I suspect the shock is on their minds and how this whole Twitter thing may carry through in Germany. In simple terms....they can't allow a power (usually entitled to the government) to be handed to a company or a group of media-geeks.
Yes, it is a national election period in Germany (September) and if you walked down some path....with Twitter yanking people off and 'burning bridges' left and right....it would give everyone the view of the Reichstag fire (1933) and that some weird scripted scenario is being played out.
The phrase 'smash the digital cartel'? Well....that got uttered via ARD public news. I was kinda shocked.
Three years ago, there was an enormous amount of fear over commentary by people on Facebook, and there were serious fines set up about fake news and harsh words. I'm guessing they will return to the table and start to ponder how far social media has gone and just what powers they gave themselves.
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