{"id":312743,"date":"2025-08-02T20:04:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-02T20:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/312743\/"},"modified":"2025-08-02T20:04:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-02T20:04:12","slug":"are-european-regulators-a-target-in-trumps-war-on-online-censorship-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/312743\/","title":{"rendered":"are European regulators a target in Trump\u2019s war on online \u2018censorship\u2019? \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A fortnight ago, US secretary of state Marco Rubio<\/a> revoked visas and thus blocked a judge and members of his family from entering the United States.<\/p>\n

Accusing the judge of a \u201cpolitical witch hunt\u201d against former Brazilian<\/a> leader Jair Bolsonaro<\/a> \u2013 a far-right populist with close links to Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s \u201cMaga\u201d movement \u2013 Rubio maintained that this involved \u201ca persecution and censorship complex so sweeping that it not only violates basic rights of Brazilians, but also extends beyond Brazil\u2019s shores to target Americans\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump made clear that his administration will hold accountable foreign nationals who are responsible for censorship of protected expression in the United States\u201d, he said. <\/p>\n

Censorship of free speech has become a very important issue for the Trump administration, particularly on restrictions on what is said online.<\/p>\n

Some on the right in the US are concerned that regulations imposed on Big Tech in Europe are blowing back across the Atlantic and targeting conservatives.<\/p>\n

In Washington, where Republicans control the White House and Congress, this is a politically explosive charge.<\/p>\n

Rubio had announced in late May a new policy that would impose visa bans on foreign nationals the administration deemed to be censoring Americans and suggested this could include officials regulating US tech companies.<\/p>\n

He said it was unacceptable for foreign officials to demand American tech platforms adopt global content moderation policies or engage in censorship activity that reached into the United States. <\/p>\n

Rubio\u2019s visa ban on the Brazilian judge may not have been headline news internationally, but it was noticed in Brussels and among those regulating Big Tech.<\/p>\n

It is understood that following Rubio\u2019s policy announcement in May some figures in Ireland\u2019s media regulatory body, Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n<\/a>, made enquiries to the Department of Foreign Affairs as to what this could mean. <\/p>\n

No one was really sure. <\/p>\n

Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n is responsible for the application and enforcement of the European Union\u2019s Digital Services Act (DSA) in Ireland. But the European Commission also monitors areas such as ensuring very large online platforms conduct regular risk assessments on illegal content or material that could negatively affect elections, security or public health.<\/p>\n

The visa ban on the Brazilian judge showed Washington\u2019s policy shift in May was not just rhetoric; regulators, officials and their families could be banned from entering the United States.<\/p>\n

Musk and Zuckerberg<\/p>\n

In early July a Christian advocacy group called ADF International argued online that the EU\u2019s DSA represented a threat to free speech \u201cand must be repealed\u201d. Shortly afterward Elon Musk<\/a>, owner of social media platform X, replied: \u201cYes\u201d.<\/p>\n

It was an indication of the concern among US tech companies at what they saw as unfair overseas taxation and regulation.<\/p>\n

In January Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg<\/a> argued that Europe had \u201can ever-increasing number of laws institutionalising censorship\u201d.<\/p>\n

These comments were rejected by politicians in Europe who, in turn, were alarmed by Musk urging Germans on his social media platform to vote for the far right Alternative for Germany<\/a> (AfD) party in elections.<\/p>\n

Ideological and financial concerns<\/p>\n

There was a time when many on the right in the US viewed the tech industry as a bastion of Silicon Valley liberals. <\/p>\n

In more recent times, the US tech sector has forged close links with Trump.<\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal reported last month that after Trump\u2019s election last November, tech chiefs including Zuckerberg and Google\u2019s Sundar Pichai met the incoming president at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida and that the need to curb \u201charmful policies\u201d overseas consistently came up in their conversations.<\/p>\n

The concerns of Big Tech and Trump\u2019s Maga movement appeared to be aligning to a degree.<\/p>\n

Dubliner Ian Plunkett, a tech policy analyst in Washington, DC, told The Irish Times that Big Tech companies had adopted a pragmatic approach under the new Trump administration. Those companies that stood by Trump at his inauguration in January were following the power, he said. <\/p>\n

Many in Trump\u2019s Maga base considered regulatory enforcement in Europe as an attack on American innovation, he said; in the eyes of those in Trump\u2019s base, US companies had developed this global technology but other countries then had the temerity to impose taxes through the enforcement of regulations that they regarded contrary to their interpretation of the freedom of speech provisions in the US constitution.<\/p>\n

Trump supporters may have ideological concerns about European regulators curtailing their free speech, but the US tech sector is also looking at the potential financial impact of European regulations. <\/p>\n

It was widely reported in the US in recent months that Musk\u2019s X social media network faced potential fines of up to \u20ac1 billion for violations of the EU\u2019s DSA, although this has been denied by the European Commission<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Over recent months the House of Representatives committee on the judiciary, chaired by republican Jim Jordan, has been carrying out an investigation into \u201chow and to what extent foreign laws, regulations and judicial orders compel, coerce or influence companies to censor speech in the United States\u201d.<\/p>\n

Last week in an interim staff report, the committee strongly criticised the DSA as \u201cthe EU\u2019s comprehensive digital censorship law\u201d. <\/p>\n

The report argued that this legislation stemmed originally from claims of Russian interference in elections in the US and in France. In the theology of Maga, this is considered heresy, as it implies that Trump did not win the White House fairly in 2016.<\/p>\n

The report describes as \u201cinaccurate\u201d EU claims that the DSA applies only to Europe and that it targets only what is harmful or illegal.<\/p>\n

\u201cNon-public documents reveal that European regulators use the DSA to target core political speech that is neither harmful nor illegal and to pressure platforms, primarily American social media companies, to change their global content moderation policies in response to European demands,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPut simply, the DSA infringes on American online speech.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report points to an EU Commission workshop last May where, it maintains, a hypothetical social media post stating: \u201cWe need to take back our country\u201d was categorised as \u201cillegal hate speech\u201d that platforms were required to censor under the DSA. <\/p>\n

The committee described the term as \u201ca common, anodyne political statement\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe DSA incentivises social media companies to comply with the EU\u2019s censorship demands because the penalties for failing to do so are large, including fines up to 6 per cent of their global revenue,\u201d the report said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf \u2018extraordinary circumstances lead to a serious threat to public security or public health in the Union\u2019, regulators are even empowered to temporarily shut down platforms within the EU.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ireland \u2018unusually exposed\u2019<\/p>\n

Members of the House committee that drew up the report were in Ireland this week and held meetings with tech companies and Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n.<\/p>\n

The delegation\u2019s visit also came in the week that X lost a legal challenge to aspects of Ireland\u2019s online safety code that are viewed by the Irish Government as crucial in protecting children.<\/p>\n

But it was not the first time that visitors from Washington had travelled to Dublin to discuss online regulation.<\/p>\n

Staff at Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n met representatives from the US state department on May 30th \u201cfollowing a request from the US embassy to better understand its functions and international collaboration\u201d.<\/p>\n

On May 19th, state department officials told Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n the visitors from Washington would \u201clike to understand how Ireland navigates balancing the protection of freedom of expression with the need to address and mitigate hate speech and online harms. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey would like to understand how the Media Commission approaches implementation of the DSA and domestic hate speech laws, including their impact on American companies.\u201d<\/p>\n

A note prepared by Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n after the meeting said it had provided an introduction to fundamental rights, \u201cincluding on empowering users who can see if and why their content has been removed or restricted online under the Digital Services Act\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cSome general discussion on freedom of expression and the differences between US law and European and member state law followed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n told The Irish Times in June that the US officials \u201cdid not seek any changes to any aspect of An Coimisi\u00fan\u2019s regulatory work at this meeting, nor did they express any concerns in relation to it\u201d.<\/p>\n

The US state department said officials from the bureau of democracy, human rights and labour had visited Ireland \u201cto underscore the administration\u2019s support for freedom of expression and the ability of all voices to be heard in the political process and to learn more about the Irish government\u2019s approach to protecting human rights\u201d. <\/p>\n

Dr TJ McIntyre, associate professor at the Sutherland School of Law in UCD and chair of civil liberties group Digital Rights Ireland, said the fact that so many big tech companies have headquarters in this country meant Ireland was \u201cunusually exposed\u201d in the arguments over regulation and censorship.<\/p>\n

The extent to which Irish law affected some of the right-wing agenda being promoted by some firms and their owners meant \u201cyou can expect further interference in the Irish democratic process\u201d to try to enable them to continue with that agenda, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A fortnight ago, US secretary of state Marco Rubio revoked visas and thus blocked a judge and members…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2106,114111,32,295,2000,299,5187,2557,1699,97095,2820,597,49],"class_list":{"0":"post-312743","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-brazil","9":"tag-coimisiun-na-mean","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-elon-musk","12":"tag-eu","13":"tag-europe","14":"tag-european","15":"tag-european-commission","16":"tag-european-union","17":"tag-jair-bolsonaro","18":"tag-marco-rubio","19":"tag-mark-zuckerberg","20":"tag-united-states"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114960968539730739","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}