{"id":479688,"date":"2025-10-07T05:19:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T05:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/479688\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T05:19:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T05:19:11","slug":"trump-administration-wants-irish-government-to-press-eu-for-more-political-speech-protections-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/479688\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump administration wants Irish Government to press EU for more political speech protections \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Trump administration<\/a> in Washington wants the Government<\/a> to urge the European Union<\/a> to allow member states to address hate speech as each \u201csees fit\u201d.<\/p>\n

It is also seeking for the Government to press Brussels to review the implementation of existing regulations to provide better protections for freedom of expression, \u201cincluding political speech\u201d. <\/p>\n

In a note to Ireland\u2019s media regulator Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n<\/a>, sent last August, the US state department said that while freedom of expression is not absolute, any restrictions \u201cmust be narrowly tailored\u201d. It said Government bans on hate speech or disinformation are generally not permissible.<\/p>\n

It urged that any local implementation of EU regulations on the operations of US social media companies<\/a> \u201cbe done with full respect for dissenting views, including views deemed offensive or critical of politicians, officials or Government institutions\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration said the EU should accept Ireland\u2019s existing legislation \u201cand refrain from launching further investigations that are inconsistent with Ireland\u2019s sovereignty and undermine freedom of expression of individuals in member states\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe encourage your Government to urge the EU to allow for each member State to address hate speech as it sees fit, consistent with international obligations to protect freedom of expression,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

Washington considers bans on hate speech to be in breach of an international convention on civil and political rights to which all EU countries are party.<\/p>\n

Almost since it came into office in January, the Trump administration has criticised restrictions in place on US technology companies operating in Europe, particularly under the EU\u2019s Digital Services Act<\/a> (DSA).<\/p>\n

It has argued that such rules \u201ctry to set content moderation standards for US companies that threaten freedom of expression in Europe, the United States and around the world\u201d.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Tech regulations will be recurring tension point between Brussels and TrumpOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

However, in a note drawn up by the state department in Washington and sent to Irish media regulator Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n, the US government maintains that EU regulations are costing technology companies billions of dollars.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe annual cost of complying with DSA to US technology companies in 2024 was estimated to total \u20ac14.8 billion in lost online advertising revenue and \u20ac18.1 billion in lost platform, subscriptions and other revenue in the EU,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

The state department in Washington also maintained that for very large platforms with more than 45 million monthly users in the EU, the annual cost of complying with the DSA was, on average, $88.5 million per year in addition to an estimated $53.5 million per year in legal and contractor fees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe DSA, as currently implemented, imposes burdens primarily on US social media companies that have both a financial and regulatory cost and also forces them to unduly restrict the speech of their users,\u201d the note said.<\/p>\n

The state department urged the Government \u201cto call for a robust review of the implementation of the DSA\u201d and to revise the implementation guidelines to ensure better protections for freedom of expression, including political speech.<\/p>\n

Freedom of expression is a \u201cbedrock principle in any democracy\u201d, but freedom of expression is not an \u201cabsolute right\u201d and it can be subject to \u201cnarrowly tailored\u201d limitations, it said.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Snapchat to begin charging users to store photo and video \u2018memories\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The US views government restrictions on speech that amounts to incitement to imminent violence or true threats as permissible, but bans on hate speech or disinformation generally are not, it said.<\/p>\n

It said the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which the US and EU members are party, obligates states to protect freedom of expression. The US interprets the ICCPR as \u201cprohibiting most forms of content-based regulation of speech including restrictions on hate speech\u201d, it said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThus, the United States views the EU approach to hate speech as inconsistent with EU member states\u2019 international obligations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The state department note was sent to Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n by the US embassy in Dublin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump administration in Washington wants the Government to urge the European Union to allow member states to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[114111,21469,32,2000,299,5187,1699,1234,182],"class_list":{"0":"post-479688","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-coimisiun-na-mean","9":"tag-digital-services-act","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-european","14":"tag-european-union","15":"tag-government","16":"tag-social-media"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115331200681607079","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479688","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=479688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}