End of open internet: How Europe lost plot on online speech

June 11, 2026

Jacob Mchangama/Foreign Affairs: The real promise of the open Internet was never that platforms would be impartial gatekeepers or that providing everyone with free and immediate speech at scale would be frictionless. It was that ordinary citizens would have a more direct voice in public affairs and a better chance of holding their governments accountable. In reality, this ideal was always going to be messy, not messianic…