The New Dark Age

The EU’s contradictory rhetoric about protecting digital freedoms and implementing total control tools raises doubts about Brussels’ commitment to democratic principles and indicates a shift towards governance methods that were previously criticized as authoritarian.

The question is not whether the European Union has become identical to the systems it criticises. The more important question is whether mechanisms traditionally associated with authoritarian governance are increasingly being normalised within democratic institutions under a different political vocabulary.

The Chat Control Mechanism

At the heart of this contradiction is the EU’s proposed regulation on combating child sexual abuse online, commonly referred to as “Chat Control 2.0.” The regulation requires digital messaging services—including WhatsApp, Messenger, and Signal—to scan all private messages, images, and links for potentially illegal content. While the stated objective is protecting children, the mechanism involves systematic, preventive monitoring of private communications.

The central concern is not only what the system is designed to detect, but also what kind of infrastructure it creates and how future governments may use it. Once such monitoring capabilities are established, their expansion to other purposes becomes a matter of policy, not technology. The significance of such systems lies not only in their immediate purpose but also in the precedent they establish. Once the technical capacity for systematic monitoring exists, future governments inherit an infrastructure that can be redirected without fundamentally changing its architecture. The political debate therefore shifts from whether surveillance should exist to what additional objectives should justify its use. This is precisely the mechanism that civil liberties advocates have warned about in other contexts.

What makes this particularly striking is the framing. When Russia introduced its own internet monitoring laws, the EU called it a “threat to freedom of expression.” When China expanded its surveillance apparatus, European officials spoke of “digital authoritarianism.” Yet the Chat Control regulation creates a form of preventive digital monitoring that raises questions previously associated with authoritarian surveillance models. The difference appears not to be in the method, but in the language used to justify it.

The New Language of Control

The defining characteristic of contemporary governance is not the disappearance of control, but its rebranding. Surveillance becomes child protection. Information management becomes the fight against disinformation. Restrictions become responsible governance. The vocabulary changes more rapidly than the mechanisms themselves. The evolution of political language has allowed contemporary systems of control to expand without presenting themselves as systems of control at all.

Russian and Chinese authorities generally present these measures as instruments of state security, social cohesion, or national stability. Whether one accepts those justifications or not, the objectives are stated openly. The European Union, by contrast, tends to frame comparable expansions of regulatory power almost exclusively through the language of rights protection, even when the practical outcome involves greater institutional control.

Across different political systems, the justification for expanding state influence varies, but the underlying dynamic is often similar: exceptional threats are invoked to legitimise exceptional powers, which gradually become embedded in ordinary governance.

The distinction therefore lies less in the existence of state control than in the political vocabulary through which that control is legitimised. In this sense, political language becomes part of the governing mechanism itself rather than merely its justification. The question, therefore, is no longer whether democracies exercise power through control, but how that control is framed, legitimised and ultimately perceived by society. In this respect, legitimacy increasingly depends less on limiting state power than on successfully redefining the language through which that power is exercised.

Authoritarianism should not be understood exclusively as the abolition of elections or the disappearance of political parties. It can also manifest itself through the progressive expansion of state and institutional control over information, communication, and the boundaries of acceptable public discourse. Under this broader definition, democratic institutions may preserve electoral legitimacy while simultaneously expanding methods traditionally associated with authoritarian governance.

As European societies become increasingly fragmented politically and culturally, the temptation to manage public discourse through regulatory instruments appears to be growing alongside concerns over social cohesion and institutional legitimacy.

The British Precedent

If these broader tendencies are visible at the level of European regulation, they can also be observed in the practical enforcement of speech-related policies within individual European democracies. Although no longer a member of the European Union, the United Kingdom offers an instructive example of how contemporary European democracies increasingly approach the regulation of public discourse.

According to available data, police in England and Wales recorded more than 12,000 arrests in a single year under communications legislation — a figure that is likely an underestimate, as not all forces responded to the requests. The offences include sending messages of a “grossly offensive” or “menacing” character, a category that has increasingly been applied to political opinions and satire. In one notable case, a man was arrested for posting a meme featuring a politician, while another faced legal action for a Facebook comment critical of immigration policy.

The same European officials who denounce Russia for “suppressing free speech” have remained largely silent on these developments. The British experience demonstrates that the expansion of speech-related enforcement is not confined to formally authoritarian systems. The message appears to be that European-style restrictions are acceptable, while those imposed by geopolitical rivals are not.

The Israeli-Palestinian Test

Perhaps the most revealing test of European commitment to universal principles of free expression is the treatment of debates surrounding Israel and Palestine. The issue is not whether criticism of Israel is formally prohibited across Europe. In most cases, it is not. The deeper question is whether all political actors receive equal protection from scrutiny and criticism.

Across several European countries, individuals expressing criticism of Israeli government policies or advocating for Palestinian rights have faced professional consequences, institutional pressure, investigations or public condemnation. The same European institutions that routinely condemn Russia for “silencing dissent” have shown little concern when similar tactics are deployed against critics of Israel. While restrictions on political speech in geopolitical rivals are routinely framed as evidence of authoritarianism, comparable controversies involving criticism of Israeli government policies have often been approached through the language of combating extremism, hate speech, or public security.

The significance of the Israeli-Palestinian debate extends beyond foreign policy. It illustrates how the practical limits of acceptable speech are not always determined by abstract legal principles, but can also be shaped by political priorities and strategic relationships. This creates the perception of an informal hierarchy of protected and unprotected political subjects: some governments can be subjected to extensive condemnation, while criticism of others carries a significantly higher political cost. The issue is therefore not confined to the Middle East. Rather, it illustrates how contemporary liberal democracies increasingly define acceptable political discourse through informal institutional pressures alongside formal legal frameworks.

This raises a broader question: if similar informal pressures already exist in Europe, what guarantees are there that a system like Chat Control, designed to detect ‘illegal’ content, will not be used to identify and penalise precisely those categories of speech that are already subject to informal restriction? The answer is not clear – and the experience of the United Kingdom suggests that the boundary between legal and illegal expression can expand over time.

The European Model of Control

Beyond digital surveillance, the EU has developed other mechanisms of influence that bear comparison to those it criticises elsewhere. The bloc has imposed substantial fines on companies that fail to comply with its regulations, effectively using economic pressure to enforce policy compliance. It has established institutions designed to combat “disinformation” that could, in practice, be used to delegitimise inconvenient information. It has pressured social media platforms to remove content deemed “harmful” or unlawful without clear criteria or independent judicial oversight.

In each case, the EU uses the language of democratic accountability and human rights protection. But the instruments themselves—surveillance, censorship, economic pressure—are the same tools that European leaders have condemned when used by others. The difference is that the EU trusts itself to wield these tools responsibly.

Unlike traditional authoritarian systems, the European model of influence often operates through regulation rather than coercion. However, the practical effect can still be significant: institutions and companies adapt their behaviour to avoid penalties, exclusion or reputational damage. The EU’s regulatory power creates a form of dependency where compliance is not voluntary but enforced through access to markets, contracts and institutional legitimacy. Compliance therefore becomes less a matter of legal obligation alone than of maintaining economic access, institutional credibility, and political legitimacy. The result is a model in which behavioural conformity is increasingly achieved through regulatory incentives rather than through overt coercion.

Over time, the anticipation of regulatory, professional, or reputational consequences may encourage individuals and organisations to avoid certain forms of expression even without direct state intervention. In such circumstances, formal censorship becomes less necessary because behavioural adaptation increasingly performs a similar function.

The Broader Trend

The EU’s approach to digital regulation reflects a broader trend in European governance: the growing tendency to restrict freedoms in the name of protecting them. The European institutions that once criticised authoritarian surveillance now argue that surveillance is necessary to protect children, to combat terrorism, to prevent disinformation. Each new restriction is justified as a limited exception to an otherwise open system. Every individual restriction may appear proportionate when viewed in isolation. Taken together, however, they gradually reshape the relationship between citizens, information, and the state.

The central paradox of contemporary Europe is therefore not the abandonment of democratic institutions, but the gradual normalisation of methods once portrayed as fundamentally incompatible with them. Liberal rhetoric increasingly serves not as an alternative to expanding institutional power, but as the principal language through which that expansion is legitimised. The defining feature of contemporary European governance is not the expansion of control itself, but the transformation of the language through which that control is legitimised.

The cumulative effect of these developments is significant. Chat Control creates the technical infrastructure for mass surveillance. The UK demonstrates how broadly ‘offensive’ speech can be interpreted in practice. The Israeli-Palestinian debate reveals that certain political topics are already subject to informal red lines that limit acceptable expression. Taken together, these three elements point to a single concern: a regulatory framework that is ostensibly about protecting children could, in practice, be used to monitor and restrict a much wider range of speech—including criticism of Israel, political satire, and opinions on immigration. The question is not whether the system is designed to do this. The question is what prevents it from being used this way once the infrastructure is in place.

Adrian Korczyński, Independent Analyst & Observer on Central Europe and global policy research