The Europeans really are serious about owning the minds of everybody within the European Union, and ultimately beyond.
It's no shock. The current ruling class is in deep trouble. Reform is now the #1 political party in the UK, at least in popularity. AfD is inching toward the top in Germany, and populist parties in almost every European country are rising as the economy stagnates, Muslim migrants run wild, and basic services slowly erode.
Ever since Elon Musk bought X, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg has mildly pushed back against the censorship complex in the United States and Europe, and panic has set in. The drying up of USAID money to censorship NGOs doesn't help, although funding them is relatively trivial even in the dire economic straits that many European countries find themselves in.
What to do? The new answer is "Digital Sovereignty," which basically means building a Great Firewall around European discourse, using techniques similar to China's.
Some other gems from the speaker, Robin Berjon of the IPFS Foundation.
— Allum Bokhari (@AllumBokhari) May 13, 2026
"You would have to apply regulation very forcefully, potentially up to and including kinetic methods in order to apply it."
"I'm not advocating that we should go and start shooting Google just yet."
Yet!
At a Cambridge University conference discussing how to control the information landscape in order to suppress wrongthink, prominent speakers prattled on about the "dangers" of the free flow of information and on various methods to destroy freedom of speech and thought. They had the censorship pitter patter down, because they are professional censors who can sell the apocalyptic scenarios, and mused about...I am not kidding...going to war to silence people.
If tech platforms are geopolitical weapons, one wonders who the weapons were pointed at when these people were in charge of the trust & safety teams?
— Allum Bokhari (@AllumBokhari) May 13, 2026
You don't have to wonder, of course - they were pointed at you.
You may ask, "You and what superpower is going to win a war against the United States (that is the implication, since American companies are targeted as the danger), but I have to assume that there is something more than idle talk here. Robin Berjon's IPFS Foundation is quite prominent and well-funded, and the list of speakers at the Cambridge conference was not technology mavens, but a mix of academics and politicians.
The recent Cambridge Disinformation Summit was host to some particularly radical remarks on the need to dislodge American tech companies from Europe. One speaker, Robin Berjon, deputy director of the IPFS Foundation, repeatedly suggested that jurisdictions wishing to regulate American tech companies — including the UK and the EU — will eventually have to resort to “kinetic methods,” up to and including the military, to force compliance.
Berjon joked that he wasn’t advocating that the EU should “go and start shooting Google just yet,” but reiterated that an approach to American tech that rested solely on regulation would eventually have to be backed by the use of force.
"Kinetic" doesn't necessarily mean attacking the United States directly; it may mean something more akin to Gray Zone warfare. IPFS's part of the ecosystem they want to build is, apparently, to switch from the current IP system to a more closed and controlled one, where the infrastructure is controlled by the powers that be for the safety of all.
Ha.
Copenhagen prof Rasmus Nielsen calls it the "Airbus for the Internet" — state-subsidized European platforms to replace the "irritating Yankees."
— Allum Bokhari (@AllumBokhari) May 13, 2026
His model is the BBC. Recommendation algorithms run by public broadcasters. Information flow back in the hands of legacy gatekeepers. pic.twitter.com/RMs1mInJqw
Could this effort be tied to the steady stream of suggestions that Europe dump the United States as its primary strategic partner and build ties to China instead? It certainly fits with the current obsession with China you see in Canada and the EU.
The irony: many of these academics are afilliated with institutions (like Harvard's Shorenstein Center) that were funded by Google and Facebook during the censorship industry's heyday.
— Allum Bokhari (@AllumBokhari) May 13, 2026
Now they want Europe to seize, destroy, or replace them. pic.twitter.com/vOM6sxCuwr
Ever since its inception, the EU has dreamed of becoming a third major superpower, but has been stymied by its security relationship with the United States and its status as an economic also-ran compared to the US. During the Cold War, the continent, or at least the top performers, was creeping up in economic power, but with the rise of the Euro and the regulations that came with increasing EU control, it has started falling behind—very badly—and now even Germany is deindustrializing.
France is facing economic collapse—a fact that few here seem to understand, probably because it seems unthinkable.
Berjon then characterized American tech companies as “private governments” that have “aligned with the U.S. government,” and argued that European powers will have no choice but to escalate:
“I think the Clinton administration is the driver there. They saw internet commerce as an explicitly libertarian project. It’s very explicitly said that private companies must lead by which they mean govern. And we’re currently in a world of private government by these companies. And it so happens that yes, those private governments, those private governments have aligned with the US government. And this is challenging certainly for Europeans, but other middle powers to push back on. I do think however, that the more we yield, the more we will continue yielding. And so it’s not as if we have an option. It’s not as if I want kinetic options, but the more we push, the more it’s likely that they will use them. We just have to be ready. And so I would say yes, the geopolitics of it are very painful, very difficult, but I don’t think we have a choice.”
Berjon’s alternative to “kinetic options,” which he expressed repeatedly throughout the panel, is the creation of a European tech infrastructure that can replace Silicon Valley companies and ensure “digital sovereignty.”
Of course, musings about going all "kinetic" on the US or US-based companies is all talk, although it does imply that somebody, somewhere, is contemplating sabotage in the manner that the Chinese have by assaulting our telecom infrastructure. I find it hard to believe anybody in Europe has the cajones to try, but people do dumb things when they panic.
And panic is what they are doing. The EU is in deep trouble, as are many European countries. The Davos crowd has had its way for a couple of decades, peaking in power during COVID and the Biden administration. Suddenly, that power is slipping away, and along with it will go the control they have had over trillions of dollars and the lives of hundreds of millions of people.
People don't give things like that up easily. They never have.
Am I worried? Not about war with Europe. In fact, there is, functionally, no "Europe" except in a bureaucratic sense. But I am worried that panicked people are even talking about such things.
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