Process Shield & Friends
Elon Musk responded to the conviction of Dries Van Langenhove on X, who immediately responded. It shows how quickly misinformation about a local cause can spread worldwide.
The reactions to the conviction of Dries Van Langenhove took a special twist when Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, commented on the case on his own X. He also asked him a quick question.
Musk’s first reaction “Whoa!” came a message from the Dutch alt-right opinion maker Eva Vlaardingerbroek. In an English-language message on X, she called Van Langenhove’s conviction an “utter tyranny”. “Former Flemish Member of Parliament Dries Van Langenhove has just been sentenced to 1 year in prison because allegedly ‘racist memes’ were shared in a private group chat he was part of,” she wrote. “This is the state of freedom of expression in Europe. They lock up patriotic dissidents. Next time they will do this to me, to you or to anyone who goes against the globalist regime.”
Vlaardingerbroek is an ex-member of Thierry Baudet’s Forum for Democracy and has grown in recent years to become “a standard-bearer of the international identitarian movement”, as the Dutch newspaper NRC recently described her. She has built up quite a following in the United States, partly through her extensive reach on social media and appearances with Tucker Carlson. Her messages also appear to appear in the feed of Elon Musk, whose discourse is increasingly drifting towards right-wing extremism.
He retweeted Vlaardingerbroek’s message, accompanied by his surprised “Whoa!”. He then also responded to a post by Van Langenhove that minimized the content of Schild & Friends’ Facebook and Discord groups. “Someone else sent this meme in a group chat and you got a prison sentence?” Musk asked, to which Van Langenhove replied in the affirmative. He added a brief history of Schild & Vrienden, according to Van Langenhove “Belgium’s biggest and most influential political youth movement”.
Crowdfunding
Compared to other social media, X is relatively small. Musk is a chain tweeter who posts about all kinds of topics at the same time. But his quick response to Van Langenhove’s conviction and the brief interaction that followed provide a sharp indication of how easily disinformation about apparently local events can be picked up worldwide.
It also shows once again how social media, and especially X, are platforms where identitarians, among others, can quickly find and support each other. For example, it is no coincidence that Dries Van Langenhove also sent out his call for his crowdfunding in English. He wants to use that money to pay his judicial fines (for a total of 24,000 euros). But as long as there is no ruling on appeal, they are not yet final and he does not have to cough up a euro. “Thanks to a push from none other than Elon Musk and Eva Vlaardingerbroek, we are already at 20%! Let’s go!”, it read on Tuesday evening. At that time he had collected more than eight thousand euros.
