Vitalik criticizes the EU Digital Services Act "Zero Space" governance: Free societies must tolerate dissent and avoid heading down the path of online authoritarianism

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin posted yesterday (26th), directly criticizing the EU’s promotion of the Digital Services Act for leaving “no space” for harmful content promotion, implying risks of authoritarianism. He called for a shift toward user empowerment rather than trying to completely eliminate content deemed as “pathogens,” sparking discussions on online free speech and digital governance.
(Background: Vitalik: Blockchain is a guardian under authoritarian regimes, promoting democracy and protecting free speech)
(Additional context: Elon Musk’s X platform fined €120 million by the EU! Blue check, advertising, and data violations of the Digital Services Act)

The EU official account @DigitalEU posted a promotional message on the X platform on December 24, 2025, promoting the Digital Services Act (DSA). The post emphasized with bold slogans: “𝗡𝗢 space for cyberbullying. 𝗡𝗢 space for dangerous products. 𝗡𝗢 space for hate speech. 𝗡𝗢 space for scams.” and added at the end: “With the Digital Services Act, what is illegal offline remains illegal online.”

The post included a promotional image aimed at demonstrating that the EU will strictly require large online platforms to manage harmful and illegal content, creating a safer digital environment.

𝗡𝗢 space for cyberbullying.
𝗡𝗢 space for dangerous products.
𝗡𝗢 space for hate speech.
𝗡𝗢 space for scams.

𝗬𝗘𝗦. With the Digital Services Act, what is illegal offline remains illegal online.

🔗 https://t.co/saKtqRunRE pic.twitter.com/ZwkVf6MMSP
— Digital EU 🇪🇺 (@DigitalEU) December 24, 2025

Vitalik: Don’t go down the path of “disinfectant” internet authoritarianism

However, just two days later, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin directly quoted this post on December 26 and issued a lengthy response expressing strong concerns. He believed that the phrase “no space” reflects an authoritarian and anti-multicultural impulse, incompatible with the essence of a free society.

This is what I worry Europe will get negatively polarized into: an ideology taking pride in a neat, sanitized online environment free of evil corporate and fascist pathogens.

I hope European govs do not go this way, and instead take a Pirate Party approach of user empowerment.… https://t.co/oH7Yfdg9pa

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) December 26, 2025

Vitalik pointed out that on subjective and controversial issues, trying to completely eliminate content regarded as “pathogens” can lead to conflicts due to differences in good intentions, ultimately possibly establishing a technocratic authoritarian mechanism to suppress dissent. He emphasized that a free society must accept that some people sell dangerous items or spread what are considered false information—that is the price of pluralism.

He further criticized that the current problem with the X (formerly Twitter) platform is not the existence of a few extreme viewpoints, but that these contents are massively promoted and forced in front of users by algorithms. He advocates that the correct goal is not to build “walls” to completely isolate harmful content, but to let bad content naturally fail to dominate the environment, similar to an ecological system. He cited Europe’s forests without tropical lizards as an example, suggesting that incentives should be used to reduce such content rather than increase it, and mentioned that Taiwan’s Digital Minister Audrey Tang (@audreyt) has discussed similar approaches.

For solutions, Vitalik advocates adopting a “Pirate Party” style user empowerment approach, including increasing platform openness, algorithm transparency (such as requiring a 1-2 year delay before revealing algorithms and verifying with zero-knowledge proofs), strengthening interoperability to promote competition, and developing privacy-preserving macro-community analysis tools to help users identify message sources more easily. He emphasized that only this approach can truly defend free speech and pluralism, avoiding a situation where a few technocrats dominate under the guise of “free” speech.