Europas Elon Moschusproblem

Americans have created an information climate that allows deceptive practices to thrive—jeopardizing the world’s ability to conduct free and fair elections, Anne Applebaum argues.

In the U.S., companies and people can use secretly funded ‘dark money’ nonprofits to donate large sums, anonymously, to super PACs, which can spend them on advertising campaigns, Applebaum writes. Anyone can boost “outrageous, incendiary lies about a candidate” with online ads. “U.S. elections are now a political Las Vegas: Anything goes.”

That’s not the case elsewhere: Britain has limits on political parties’ spending, and Polish courts fast-track election-related libel cases before a vote in order to discourage lying. The purpose of such laws, Applebaum writes, is to create conditions for fair debate and build trust in the system. The European Union has fined tech companies billions—and is the one institution that could force them to change their policies.

But regulators also face pressure, originating in the U.S., to halt enforcement. There are real questions posed by Elon Musk’s “open, aggressive use of X to spread false information and promote extremist and anti-European politicians in the U.K., Germany, and elsewhere,” Applebaum writes. “The integrity of elections—and the possibility of debate untainted by misinformation injected from abroad—is equally challenged” by the Chinese platform TikTok, and by Meta.

Tech oligarchs “want to undermine European institutions, because they don’t want to be regulated—and they may have the American president on their side,” she continues. The EU, Great Britain, and other democracies may “have to choose” between an alliance with the U.S. and the ability to select their own leaders “without the pressure of aggressive outside manipulation.”

“If you are Albania, or even the United Kingdom, do you still get to set the parameters of your public debate?” Applebaum asks. “Or are you now forced to be Las Vegas too?”

Read more here: [https://theatln.tc/rWsiCRNW](https://theatln.tc/rWsiCRNW) 

— Mary Stachyra Lopez, audience and engagement editor, *The Atlantic*