The European Commission ruled that Meta is violating EU law by failing to prevent children under 13 from accessing Instagram and Facebook. The decision, which follows a nearly two-year investigation, concludes that Meta breached the Digital Services Act (DSA) by not diligently identifying, assessing, and mitigating the risks of minors under 13 using its services.
The conflict over the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) reflects a deeper ideological clash between American and European understandings of free speech, state power, and digital governance. The DSA was created to force large online platforms such as Meta, Google, X, and TikTok to remove illegal content, reduce disinformation, increase transparency, and mitigate what the EU defines as ‘systemic risks’ to democracy and public safety. European policymakers defend the law as a legitimate democratic regulation designed to combat hate speech, foreign disinformation, election interference, and harmful online behaviour. They argue that Europe’s post-Second World War political tradition treats freedom of expression as a right balanced against social responsibility and public order, rather than an unrestricted absolute.
American critics, on the other hand, disagree. They claim that DSA is a form of indirect censorship that threatens the American tradition of free speech protected by the First Amendment. Their argument is not merely that the EU bans illegal content, but that the law pressures companies into over-removing lawful speech out of fear of massive fines and regulatory punishment. Critics warn that vague concepts such as ‘harmful content’, ‘misinformation’, and ‘systemic risk’ allow governments to influence political discourse and suppress dissenting viewpoints.
There might be a compromise posture between the EU and the US, and that might have to do with the eradication of anonymity in social media. Social conservatives and civilizationalists can agree on the multiple darker realities of unrestricted social media, and liberals in the EU and the US can agree that free speech also comes with certain republican accountability. In fact, conservatives should oppose anonymity and thus defang the main criticism by liberals pushing for further erosion of free speech.
Consider that at the heart of any stable conservative society lies the social contract: the implicit agreement through which individuals surrender certain freedoms in exchange for order, security, and mutual obligations. Civil society requires restraint. Citizens must recognize one another as fellow members of a common political community, even amidst profound disagreement.
Social media, however, fragments this shared civic space into isolated tribes and antagonistic factions. Instead of encouraging deliberation or compromise, algorithms reward outrage, conflict, and emotional extremity because such content generates engagement and profit. The result is the complete atomization of society into competing digital mobs incapable of trust or collective solidarity.
Social media has increasingly become a destructive force that weakens the social contract, corrodes civic virtue, undermines republican traditions of debate and coexistence, encourages mob justice, and dissolves the legal and moral safeguards upon which civilized societies depend. Rather than elevating human discourse, it often amplifies humanity’s worst instincts: tribalism, cruelty, impulsiveness, voyeurism, and collective rage.
‘Man is least himself when he talks in his own person,’ Oscar Wilde wrote, ‘give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.’ Historically, social interaction was mediated through institutions that imposed standards of conduct: family, church, university, workplace, political party, or local community. Reputation mattered because people were embedded within visible social structures.
Social media removes these restraints by transforming communication into an endless and often consequence-free performance before anonymous audiences. Individuals are no longer participants in a civic order; they become avatars competing for validation, influence, and attention. Public discourse degenerates into spectacle. The social contract weakens because social trust itself becomes impossible in an environment defined by suspicion, performative hostility, and perpetual outrage.
‘Man is least himself when he talks in his own person…give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth’
For social conservatives, one of the most corrosive aspects of social media is complete anonymity. Republican systems of government, from the Roman Republic to Anglo-American constitutional traditions, have historically depended upon the notion of accountable citizenship. Public debate required identifiable participants who stood openly behind their arguments. Political life assumed the existence of civic virtue: restraint, dignity, responsibility, and the willingness to coexist with opponents. Anonymity destroys these principles by allowing individuals to participate in public life without accountability or personal consequence.
Moreover, anonymity destroys the possibility of genuine coexistence. Historically, accusations carried legal and social consequences. A defamatory statement could result in reputational ruin for the accuser if proven false. Social media has inverted this principle. False accusations now spread instantaneously to millions of people, often without evidence, verification, or recourse. Even when allegations are disproven, the damage is irreversible because digital outrage operates according to emotional momentum rather than truth.
This dynamic creates a form of mob justice unprecedented in scale and speed. A rumour, edited clip, or out-of-context statement can trigger mass harassment campaigns within hours. Employers are pressured to terminate workers, institutions issue public condemnations, and individuals are socially ostracized before any investigation has occurred. The mob does not seek truth; it seeks emotional satisfaction and collective punishment. Social media thus revives one of the oldest and most primitive forms of human behaviour: the crowd mentality. Social media also undermines one of the foundational principles of the common law tradition: that individuals are innocent until proven guilty through fair procedures and impartial evidence.
Anglo-American legal systems evolved precisely to prevent arbitrary punishment and emotional justice. The rule of law requires standards of evidence, cross-examination, judicial neutrality, and the presumption of innocence. Social media bypasses all of these protections. Trial by media represents a profound civilizational regression because it substitutes emotional spectacle for justice. The common law tradition emerged over centuries precisely to restrain vengeance and arbitrary accusation.
Social media reverses this achievement by reintroducing forms of public shaming and collective punishment more reminiscent of medieval crowds than constitutional democracies. The digital mob becomes prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner simultaneously.
The psychology of the mob has long been understood by political theorists. ‘The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim,’ Gustave Le Bon (no liberal himself) wrote. Social media, therefore, is the ultimate ‘state of nature’: a return to a condition in which power, emotion, and tribal affiliation dominate over law and reason, prior to the existence of any social contract and civilization.
The long-term implications are dangerous. Civilization depends on restraint and moderation, and most importantly, accountability. Ultimately, anonymity provides liberals with a cause to campaign against all technology and free speech. By enforcing a renewed social contract and destroying anonymity, conservatives can reclaim the mantle of the common good, as well as take away the largest weapon from the EU’s arsenal.
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