French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday said that the notion of free speech on social media platforms -is "pure bullshit,"because algorithmically served content can lead to hate speech (such as the right to say his elderly wife has a penis and gives him black eyes).

The comments come after the US recently imposed bans on a former European official and pro-censorship activists for trying to police online speech, while US Secretary of State Marco Rubio justifies the moves as pushback against the "global censorship-industrial complex."

Europe, includingGermany and the UK, have been weighing social media bans for minors, a move that could impact critical advertising revenue for companies and platforms such as Meta, TikTok, YouTube, Snap, X, and others.

"Having no clue about how their algorithm is made, how it’s tested, trained and where it will guide you — the democratic consequences of this bias could be huge," Macron said in New Delhi on Wednesday,Bloombergreports.

"Some of them claim to be in favor of free speech — OK, we are in favor of free algorithms — totally transparent," he continued. "Free speech is pure bullshit if nobody knows how you are guided to this so-called free speech, especially when it is guided from one hate speech to another."

French President Macron:Free speech is a pure bullshit if nobody knows how you are guided through this so-called free speech—especially when it is to be guided from one hated speech to another hated speech.I just want to have a transparent road through these different…pic.twitter.com/pFAQ62SsxU

Earlier this month,Macron said he expects a battle with the Trump administrationover the bloc's regulation of digital services, and that countries such as France and Spain could be punished if they move forward with proposed social media bans for children.

The Trump administration has vowed to oppose efforts by foreign nations to "censor our discourse" or otherwise limit free speechthat has been used to disadvantage anti-immigration political parties, and that the US would foster "resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations."

Vice President JD Vance, speaking last year at the Munich Security Conference,accused the EU of suppressing free speech and said Europe’s retreat from its fundamental values was a bigger threat to the continent than Russia or China.Calling Trump Washington’s “new sheriff,” Vance slammed attempts to moderate speech on social media.

Some EU officials were concerned that the US was using free speech as a pressure point to cow the bloc into softening its regulation of technology platforms, Bloomberg reported earlier. -Bloomberg

Source: ZeroHedge News