That’s what Martin Bosma asks during what seems to be a parliamentary committee hearing (I’m not sure exactly what it was; our Dutch readers can tell us). The incident that prompted the discussion was the suspension of Geert Wilders from Twitter due to his tweet about immigration.
Mr. Bosma is a member of Mr. Wilders’ party, the Party for Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijheid, PVV). However, what is surprising in this instance is that that Jan Middendorp, a representative of a rival party, the VVD, is in broad agreement with the PVV on the issue.
Many thanks to C for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
Video transcript:
| 00:00 | I have submitted questions in writing, together with my colleague van Gent, | |
| 00:04 | about the blocking of our colleague Geert Wilders. | |
| 00:09 | The question is, of course… I have no answers yet, so I think it’s important to find | |
| 00:13 | out what the minister’s position is regarding freedom of speech. | |
| 00:18 | Can Twitter decide to block one of our colleagues? If so, how often does this happen? | |
| 00:26 | According to the VVD, the law applies online as much as in the real world. | |
| 00:32 | The judge can decide in cases where this is not clear. | |
| 00:35 | So, who is the arbiter when it concerns freedom of speech online? | |
| 00:41 | Is it the shareholders of Twitter, the minister or somebody else? As far as the VVD is concerned, | |
| 00:46 | it is not the government, nor the shareholder of a tech company, | |
| 00:50 | so the question is, how does this relate to freedom of speech, | |
| 00:53 | how does the minister plan to deal with this? | |
| 00:56 | And what was her response when she heard about the block of our colleague Geert Wilders? | |
| 01:02 | [Speaker:] Mr Bosma would like to interrupt. | |
| 01:07 | I don’t know if Mr Middendorp was done with his section on Twitter, I don’t want to interrupt. | |
| 01:12 | I just wanted to say we have to be critical when it comes to big tech companies. | |
| 01:16 | That sounds like a conclusion. —Speaker, I appreciate very much that Mr Middendorp | |
| 01:19 | speaks in defense of my party leader [Wilders]; that takes civil courage. | |
| 01:22 | He asks a question. I wonder if he has an answer himself. | |
| 01:29 | The problem is, of course, that Twitter, and there are many other examples, | |
| 01:32 | are of course companies that make their own policies, that say yea or nay, | |
| 01:38 | and that, moreover, are headquartered outside the Netherlands. | |
| 01:42 | Does the VVD have ideas about how to deal with this? | |
| 01:46 | Mr Middendorp. | |
| 01:50 | What I would suggest, Speaker, is that we just apply current law to the online world. | |
| 02:00 | That means that freedom of expression is the most important thing, and calls to violence. | |
| 02:08 | constitute an exception. | |
| 02:13 | And I think that Mr Bosma, to anticipate his next question, has in mind the gray area, | |
| 02:21 | namely, when is something a call to violence, when can the freedom of expression | |
| 02:27 | be constrained, as Twitter did in this case? | |
| 02:33 | The VVD feels it should not be the government, and definitely not | |
| 02:38 | the shareholder of a tech company, so we ask the minister | |
| 02:43 | to reflect on her opinion on this. —Thank you. Mr Bosma? —Well, that’s not the question. | |
| 02:47 | The question is, if this is how we all feel, which I think is the case, how can we | |
| 02:53 | make the company Twitter, which is headquartered where, in Cupertino California or thereabouts? | |
| 02:57 | — in a very different country, with very different norms and values, | |
| 03:00 | and Silicon Valley is as left-wing as it gets. | |
| 03:03 | How can we make sure that Dutch norms and values are respected by such an American tech company? | |
| 03:10 | That would appear difficult. —Mr Middendorp. | |
| 03:13 | Well, Speaker, that is indeed rather difficult. | |
| 03:17 | But I think that we should not simply accept that there’s somebody | |
| 03:21 | in Cupertino, California who is difficult to reach. | |
| 03:26 | Because if I say here [quoting Wilders’ tweet]: “Let us stand up | |
| 03:30 | against the suckers of D66, who leave the borders open, | |
| 03:34 | import more, more Islam and then cry crocodile tears etc,” | |
| 03:37 | and the company that supplied this microphone turns it off, then I think we have a problem. | |
| 03:43 | So I believe that I asked the minister exactly what she thinks about that grey area, | |
| 03:50 | and how we are going to make the line between free speech and calls to violence clear online. | |
| 03:59 | I don’t think that I have a clear answer for Mr Bosma. | |
| 04:02 | Thank you. —Mr Speaker, I’m shocked. The definition that GreenLeft uses for | |
| 04:08 | disinformation / fake news is manipulated news from an unclear source. | |
| 04:14 | GreenLeft also came up with a plan: if I understand correctly, | |
| 04:18 | the council for elections has to evaluate political ads, | |
| 04:22 | and has to decide whether something is allowed to be posted or not. | |
| 04:29 | The council for elections, which has a very different role in our democracy, | |
| 04:35 | has to decide whether a political ad is factual or not. Did I get that right? | |
| 04:42 | Madam Özütok. | |
| 04:46 | Yes, that’s about right. That is indeed a different role, | |
| 04:50 | A different task. at this moment I see a shortcoming. | |
| 04:54 | when it comes to control and enforcement in that area. | |
| 04:59 | The Ministry of Internal Affairs could maybe also do this, | |
| 05:03 | but I think the council could be transformed | |
| 05:07 | just as well; I think the minister is already working on this. | |
| 05:12 | It’s an idea, I wonder what your opinion is on this? —Mr Bosma. | |
| 05:18 | Well, I’m against it. But. I smell the roots of GreenLeft, | |
| 05:22 | namely 90 years of the Communist Party Netherlands, | |
| 05:27 | part of international communism, a totalitarian party, fiercely opposed to | |
| 05:31 | freedom in the Netherlands, a party that has reinvented itself, | |
| 05:36 | and now proposes to transform not only the council, | |
| 05:39 | but as it now turns out, also the Ministry of Internal Affairs, | |
| 05:42 | into an organisation that has to decide which political ad is allowed to be posted and | |
| 05:46 | which isn’t. Well, the minister isn’t exactly beaming with enthusiasm, | |
| 05:51 | but I break out in a cold sweat at the thought that civil servants, | |
| 05:55 | with all due respect, have to decide | |
| 05:58 | which political ads are allowed to be published in the Netherlands. | |
| 06:02 | That is not a country I’d want to live in. And I’d like to ask | |
| 06:06 | the GreenLeft lady to ease up on her communist roots, and | |
| 06:10 | just choose freedom again, so that citizens can decide whether a political ad is truthful or not. | |
| 06:16 | Madam Özütok. | |
| 06:22 | Yes, I’m proud of my roots, let me start by saying that. | |
| 06:27 | And it could be citizens, it could be the citizens’ council that exercises control. | |
| 06:31 | What I find is that there’s a shortcoming in this area, | |
| 06:36 | that the freedom of all these tech companies when it comes to influencing | |
| 06:40 | is [too] large. I’m looking for options | |
| 06:44 | to exert some kind of control. And my idea can be exchanged for any | |
| 06:49 | better idea, but I haven’t heard any from you. | |
| 06:55 | Thank you. I now give the floor to Mr Bosma of the PVV. | |
| 06:59 | Thank you, Mr Speaker. This was the holy struggle, | |
| 07:03 | this minister’s holy war against what she called fake news. | |
| 07:07 | It started with three pages in [the newspaper] De Telegraaf full of alarmist talking points, about | |
| 07:12 | fake news that allegedly undermined the democratic rule of law, and, I quote, “an uninterrupted | |
| 07:16 | stream of disinformation coming from Russia.” | |
| 07:21 | So what was this fake news? We heard the minister say my party [PVV] makes a contribution | |
| 07:24 | in that area. —[Öztürk, DENK party] That’s correct. —But D66 claimed DENK peddles | |
| 07:27 | fake news, apparently everybody was involved. [DENK hired trolls, designed ads to smear Wilders] | |
| 07:33 | What is it? Well, Hugo de Jong, our vice-PM, gave the answer. He said minister Ollongren | |
| 07:38 | would without doubt give some examples, I repeat, without doubt. | |
| 07:44 | The only example we were given was a fake Russian website. | |
| 07:48 | An EU expert group against disinformation would be set up, | |
| 07:52 | with Madam de Cock Buning as president; never heard from that again. | |
| 07:56 | Parliament made an important motion to stop with the “EU vs. disinformation”, | |
| 08:00 | a shady EU group that was supposed to monitor the Internet. | |
| 08:05 | That motion was ignored. In many debates, I and some others have grilled the minister, | |
| 08:10 | to force examples and a definition out of her, of what this fake news is exactly. | |
| 08:16 | In the end she came up with “unwanted foreign interference by state actors”. OK. | |
| 08:22 | The only example we were offered was that the Russian ambassador | |
| 08:25 | had said something about MH17 that was false. | |
| 08:28 | I thought it was the job of an ambassador to defend his country, but apparently that was fake news. | |
| 08:33 | In the minister’s recent campaign, the aim of the purveyor of fake news is to create unrest, | |
| 08:38 | which is a completely new [definition]. We learned it can also be a prank. | |
| 08:44 | and its purpose can also be to make money. In short, the goalposts shift; | |
| 08:49 | we don’t know what the danger is exactly, but we have to fight these windmills. | |
| 08:55 | Then there’s the letter from 14 June which says, and I quote: evaluation of recent elections. | |
| 09:03 | Nothing to suggest that during our elections, | |
| 09:07 | state actors spread disinformation on a large scale. OK. | |
| 09:11 | So Mr Speaker, to conclude: no examples, no proof, lots of hot air, | |
| 09:16 | scare tactics, panic-mongering, posturing, a little populism. | |
| 09:22 | In short Mr Speaker, nothing at all. —Mr Öztürk would like to interrupt. | |
| 09:27 | [Öztürk, in broken Dutch:] Yes, it’s very odd, Mr Speaker, but the PVV lost the last two elections. | |
| 09:32 | I don’t know if there are any effects. In the elections that the minister | |
| 09:37 | says the Russians intervened in, the PVV did reasonably well. | |
| 09:43 | [laughs] The elections, the last two, when there apparently | |
| 09:47 | wasn’t any interference, the PVV got zero seats in Europe. | |
| 09:51 | and barely any seats in provincial elections, so, I don’t know, but… —And your question? | |
| 09:56 | Maybe Mr Bosma knows the answer [more?] about that. —Mr Speaker, | |
| 10:01 | I’m overjoyed that Mr Öztürk is still with us, because he almost had a seat in the Senate. | |
| 10:07 | That’s not an answer! That’s not an answer! —But Group Erdogan [DENK] | |
| 10:11 | won so few seats in provincial elections that Öztürk is still with us. | |
| 10:15 | That’s not an answer! That’s not an answer! —If that is the outcome of interference | |
| 10:19 | by any intelligence service, then I’d almost find said service sympathetic. | |
| 10:22 | [Speaker:] This is turning into a very special little debate. Uhm. —Not an answer! [giggles] | |
| 10:29 | Mr Bosma, I think you gave a proper answer. —[Bosma] I’m glad I have your support, Mr Speaker. | |
| 10:34 | Well, in the sense that you offered an answer, let me put it that way. | |
| 10:37 | I suggest that you carry on, unless Mr Öztürk wants to | |
| 10:40 | extend his interruption, but this will limit the options of other members of the committee. | |
| 10:45 | Well, look, I am trying to find a connection between what | |
| 10:49 | Mr Bosma is saying, and factual information. | |
| 10:54 | All I’ve mentioned are facts. Mr Bosma drags things into this discussion | |
| 10:58 | that are irrelevant, in order to defend himself. This has nothing to do | |
| 11:02 | with me or other countries, it’s simply a fact that there was Russian interference. | |
| 11:06 | We gave information that there were hundreds of thousands | |
| 11:09 | of Twitter messages supporting the PVV, | |
| 11:12 | and in connection with that I’m asking: did this influence | |
| 11:15 | the result? The last time we didn’t see that. | |
| 11:18 | So let’s talk about this in an open and honest way, Mr Bosma. Tell us honestly, | |
| 11:22 | did it have any effect or not? —Mr Bosma. | |
| 11:25 | Mr Speaker, Mr Öztürk says there was Russian interference. I haven’t seen any evidence of that. | |
| 11:31 | If I apply GreenLeft’s definition of fake news, if you manipulate information and | |
| 11:35 | the source is not clear, then Mr Öztürk is now spreading fake news, | |
| 11:40 | because I’d like to know what his sources are, but he doesn’t have any. —I do too! | |
| 11:46 | I appreciate that Mr Öztürk. —Mr Öztürk is trying to say something, so undoubtedly | |
| 11:51 | he will contribute to the discussion later. I suggest you continue. | |
| 11:56 | Thank you, Mr Speaker. In the period leading up to elections, | |
| 12:00 | the minister started a campaign to raise awareness, | |
| 12:04 | very amateurish, “stayalert.nl”, Mr Speaker. One cringes when reading it. | |
| 12:10 | It says: “Don’t believe everything you read online, check the source.” | |
| 12:16 | Citizens are talked down to, like toddlers. | |
| 12:20 | Which is typical of D66’s culture, it’s only to be expected. | |
| 12:24 | The letter dated May 14 states, if I understand it correctly, | |
| 12:28 | the campaign will be evaluated. I didn’t see any criteria. | |
| 12:31 | How will that campaign, which cost millions, be evaluated? What will | |
| 12:36 | the criteria be? What are the conditions for success, Mr Speaker? | |
| 12:41 | The war on free speech is, regarding fake news, coming to an end. | |
| 12:46 | Because that was the hidden agenda behind the war on fake news. | |
| 12:51 | The voices that left-liberal elites don’t like to hear had to be silenced. | |
| 12:59 | That war has now moved to Twitter and Facebook, | |
| 13:03 | and now we see the return of the concept of “hate speech”, | |
| 13:07 | and we see that conservative voices, nationalist voices, are silenced on these media. | |
| 13:14 | One after another is banned from Twitter, in the US but also the Netherlands. | |
| 13:19 | Mr Middendorp touched on this, but the question I asked Mr Middendorp | |
| 13:25 | I’d really like to ask the minister. | |
| 13:31 | It is a difficult question, and I admit I have no immediate answer, but how do we guarantee | |
| 13:37 | that our Dutch notion of freedom of expression is not violated on these media? | |
| 13:43 | How do we guarantee this? I don’t know, but the minister is educated on this subject; it is her | |
| 13:47 | trade, so I’d like to give her the floor to answer this question. |