Freddie Ponton | 21WIRE On 15 December 2025, the European Union sanctioned Jacques Baud, a Swiss national and independent military analyst, accusing him of spreading “false narratives” on Ukraine and NATO. Officially framed as a safeguard for European democratic resilience, the move exposes a far more troubling reality: a censorship industrial complex in which independent analysis, alternative viewpoints, and rigorous debate are increasingly treated as a national security threat. Across Europe, unelected bureaucrats in Brussels, supported by a sprawling network of state-aligned NGOs, now wield the power to monitor, flag, and remove content; define disinformation; and impose sanctions, often without meaningful judicial oversight. Laws like the Digital Services Act (DSA) compel platforms to remove or restrict content under threat of fines and give influence to “trusted flaggers,” many handpicked civil society organisations funded by the EU. The so-called trusted flagger status is granted …