Newly Released Documents Reveal Big Tech Limited Millions of Posts During EU Elections

Ah, elections—the pinnacle of democracy where the common folk cast their ballots and, ideally, choose their fate. But hold onto your hats, because behind the grandeur of the European Parliament elections this year lurked a very different sort of governance, one executed not in the open streets but in algorithmic backrooms. Welcome to the Age of Censorship-as-a-Service, brought to you by our ever-dependable friends at Meta, Google, and TikTok.

Meta’s Mission: Make the Truth More… Manageable

Let’s begin with Meta. In a move that feels like something out of a dystopian satire, Meta proudly announced they had reduced the reach of tens of millions of posts across Europe. They wielded over 150,000 Facebook fact-checking articles to de-escalate the virality of 30 million pieces of content.

According to Meta, this wasn’t censorship—no, it was a mere “scaling of the work of independent fact-checkers.” The way they tell it, this was all in the name of maintaining “informed and reliable discussions.” Ah, reliable discussions, where only pre-approved, EU-certified opinions are allowed to flow freely.

Of course, official government statements and the edicts from the holy temples of global health organizations were entirely exempt from Meta’s moderating fervor. After all, why impede the credibility of those who are never wrong—except, of course, when they are, but let’s not get hung up on inconvenient details like that.

On Instagram, another Meta product, this brave new moderation mission persisted. The platform used 39,000 fact-checking articles to put the brakes on nearly a million posts. That’s right—one million “potentially hazardous” thoughts and opinions that, for the good of humanity, needed a little algorithmic throttle. And if you were wondering, it wasn’t just the memes of conspiracy theorists—they made sure that you, your grandma, and that neighbor with too many political opinions got the message too: “Play nice, or we’ll see to it no one hears you.”

TikTok: Suppressing, But Make It Fashionable

Meta wasn’t the only digital nanny keeping Europeans in line. Over at TikTok, the playbook got even hazier. The platform took pride in admitting that it restricted misleading posts—though, unlike Meta, TikTok kept the numbers conveniently vague. You see, their strategy was more about “awareness,” guiding content creators with a gentle algorithmic shove away from the tempting edges of disinformation. How thoughtful.

As if to prove their dedication to curated reality, TikTok also pointed Irish users in the direction of fact-checks from TheJournal.ie, an outlet that coincidentally receives EU funding. No conflict of interest there, right? Just an honest effort to “raise awareness.” And while TikTok didn’t offer up the numbers, we can be assured that plenty of thumbs danced across phone screens only to find their intended messages conveniently dulled down or disappeared.

Google: Where Terms of Service Are Optional

And then we have Google, that beacon of a supposedly neutral search engine—except when it isn’t. Reports show that YouTube, under Google’s magnanimous ownership, automatically deboosted videos that complied with their very own terms of service. Yes, you read that right. Even when content passed muster by their own rulebook, some unseen hand deemed it “unworthy.” Google tells us this was to curb the spread of misinformation. A noble aim, except for that pesky issue of who gets to decide what counts as misinformation—and why.

Critics, like Tom Vandendriessche, an MEP for Patriots for Europe, have not been fooled by the big, earnest proclamations of “integrity protection.”

Vandendriessche—whose party has fought and won against Big Tech’s silencing efforts—paints a stark picture of unchecked power: tech companies with unprecedented influence, deciding who gets heard and who doesn’t.

“This could lead to an era of ‘techno-communism,'” Vandendriessche argued to Brussels Signal, where an unelected cabal decides what constitutes reality for the rest of us. A “techno-communism” where, if your thoughts don’t align with the given narrative, they might as well not exist.

It’s not like Vandendriessche is shouting into the void, either. His criticism comes backed by experience, his party having already tasted the bitter fruits of deplatforming. If a democratically elected official can’t even get his voice out there without tech giants intervening, what hope is there for the average citizen with an inconvenient truth?

The EU’s Seal of Approval: Trust Us, We’re Here to Help

But let’s not forget the EU brass, who are, predictably, patting Big Tech on the back. Věra Jourová seems to believe they’ve stumbled onto some grand new way to “protect the integrity of elections.” Their stance on Big Tech’s secretive influence campaign was remarkably sunny—because nothing says “protecting democracy” like a few ultra-rich corporations quietly deciding what can or cannot be said during election season.

What’s fascinating is the conviction with which the EU spins this story. They genuinely believe—or want us to believe—that this centralized control is for our benefit, a way to combat the terrifying specter of “disinformation.” Clearly, the best way to fight misinformation is to silence millions of voices, all while exempting the officials and organizations whose statements are apparently beyond reproach. Trust us, they say: We’re only limiting the information you receive for your own good.

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Related Topics:#ReclaimTheNet AlgorithmicThrotle BigTech"Scaling"UnapprovedInformation ChristinaMaas EUElectionsCensorship FactChecking

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Conservative MP Leslyn Lewis slams Liberal plan targeting religious exemption in hate speech bil

Published on December 3, 2025

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Bill C-9 is being called an attempt to criminalize sections of the Bible, Quran, Torah, and other sacred texts in Canada.

Canadian Conservative MP Leslyn Lewis blasted a federal government plan to criminalize parts of the Bible as an attack on “Christians,” warning it sets a “dangerous precedent” for Canadian society.

“The Liberal government has agreed to remove the religious exemption in their hate speech bill, C-9, to secure Bloc support and push this bill through Parliament,” Lewis wrote Tuesday on X.

“This is not a minor adjustment. This shift comes at the direct expense of Christians and other religious communities across Canada.”

As reported by LifeSiteNews, a government insider revealed that the Liberal government of Prime Minister Mark Carney plans to remove religious exemptions from Canada’s hate-speech laws by modifying a bill.

Bill C-9, the Combating Hate Act, as reported by LifeSiteNews, has been blasted by constitutional experts as allowing empowered police and the government to go after those it deems have violated a person’s “feelings” in a “hateful” way.

A recent media report states that the Carney Liberals and the separatist Bloc Québécois want to amend Bill C-9, which would “criminalize sections of the Bible, Quran, Torah, and other sacred texts,” Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre noted yesterday on X.

Lewis warned that “no government” should “ever negotiate away religious liberty in exchange for political support.”

“No party should decide which beliefs are acceptable and which ones carry criminal risk,” she warned.

She added that the Liberal government of Carney’s plan to amend Bill C-9 is a “dangerous precedent.”

Poilievre blasted the Liberals’ plan as well, warning Liberal-Bloc amendments to C-9 will “criminalize sections of the Bible, Quran, Torah, and other sacred texts.”

“Conservatives will oppose this latest Liberal assault on freedom of expression and religion,” he noted on X earlier this week.

In response, the party launched a petition over fear that religious texts could be criminalized.

Liberal MP Marc Miller had said earlier in the year that certain passages of the Bible are “hateful” because of what it says about homosexuality and those who recite the passages should be jailed. As reported by LifeSiteNews, he was recently appointed as a government minister by Prime Minister Mark Carney.

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A Democracy That Can’t Take A Joke Won’t Tolerate Dissent

Published on December 2, 2025

Todayville

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Collin May

Targeting comedians is a sign of political insecurity

A democracy that fears its comedians is a democracy in trouble. That truth landed hard when Graham Linehan, the Irish writer behind Father Ted and The IT Crowd, stepped off a plane at Heathrow on Sept. 1, 2025, and was met by five London Metropolitan Police officers ready to arrest him for three posts on X.

Returning to the UK from Arizona, he was taken into custody on the charge of “suspicion of inciting violence”, an allegation levelled with increasing ease in an age wary of offence. His actual “crime” amounted to three posts, the most contentious being a joke about trans-identified men in exclusively female spaces and a suggestion that violated women respond with a swift blow to a very sensitive part of the male’s not-yet-physically-transitioned anatomy.

The reaction to Linehan’s arrest, from J.K. Rowling to a wide array of commentators, was unqualified condemnation. Many wondered whether free speech had become a museum piece in the UK. Asked about the incident, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer defended his country’s reputation for free expression but declined to address the arrest itself.

Canada has faced its own pressures on comedic expression. In 2022, comedian Mike Ward saw a 12-year legal saga end when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled five-to-four that the Quebec Human Rights Commission had no jurisdiction to hear a complaint about comments Ward made regarding a disabled Quebec boy. The ruling confirmed that human rights bodies cannot police artistic expression when no discrimination in services or employment has occurred. In that case, comic licence survived narrowly.

These cases reveal a broader trend. Governments and institutions increasingly frame comedy as a risk rather than a social pressure valve. In an environment fixated on avoiding perceived harm, humour becomes an easy and symbolic target. Linehan’s arrest underscores the fragility of free speech, especially in comedic form, in countries that claim to value democratic openness.

Comedy has long occupied an unusual place in public life. One of its earliest literary appearances is in Homer’s Iliad. A common soldier, Thersites, is ugly, sharp-tongued and irreverent. He speaks with a freedom others will not risk, mocking Agamemnon and voicing the frustrations of rank-and-file soldiers. He represents the instinct to puncture pretension. In this sense, comedy and philosophy share a willingness to speak uncomfortable truths that power prefers to avoid.

Aristotle, in his Poetics, noted that tragedy imitates noble actions and depicts people who are to be taken seriously. Comedy, by contrast, imitates those who appear inferior. Yet this lowly status is precisely what gives comedy its political usefulness. It allows performers to say what respectable voices cannot, revealing hypocrisies that formal discourse leaves untouched.

In the Iliad, Thersites does not escape punishment. Odysseus, striving to restore order, strikes him with Agamemnon’s staff, and the soldiers laugh as Thersites is silenced. The scene captures a familiar dynamic. Comedy can expose authority’s flaws, but authority often responds by asserting its dominance. The details shift across history, but the pattern endures.

Modern democracies are showing similar impatience. Comedy provides a way to question conventions without inviting formal conflict. When governments treat jokes as misconduct, they are not protecting the public from harm. They are signalling discomfort with scrutiny. Confident systems do not fear irreverence; insecure ones do.

The growing targeting of comedians matters because it reflects a shift toward institutions that view dissent, even in comedic form, as a liability. Such an approach narrows the space for open dialogue and misunderstands comedy’s role in democratic life. A society confident in itself tolerates mockery because it trusts its citizens to distinguish humour from harm.

In October, the British Crown Prosecution Service announced it would not pursue charges against Linehan. The London Metropolitan Police Service also said it would stop recording “non-crime hate incidents”, a controversial category used to document allegations of hateful behaviour even when no law has been broken. These reversals are welcome, but they do not erase the deeper unease that allowed the arrest to happen.

Comedy survives, but its environment is shifting. In an era where leaders are quick to adopt moral language while avoiding meaningful accountability, humour becomes more necessary, not less. It remains one of the few public tools capable of exposing the distance between political rhetoric and reality.

The danger is that in places where Agamemnon’s folly, leadership driven by pride and insecurity, takes root, those who speak uncomfortable truths may find themselves facing not symbolic correction but formal sanctions. A democracy that begins by targeting its jesters rarely stops there.

Collin May is a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, a lawyer, and Adjunct Lecturer in Community Health Sciences at the University of Calgary, with degrees in law (Dalhousie University), a Masters in Theological Studies (Harvard) and a Diplome d’etudes approfondies (Ecole des hautes etudes, Paris).