How EU Censorship Suppresses Free Speech in America

American conservatives are well aware that the Left dominates the information environment in this country, and has no qualms about using that dominance against them. What may surprise American readers, however, is just how much blame Europe bears for fostering that imbalance. European governments, through both direct funding and overt pressure, have influenced American media platforms and collaborated with fact-checking organizations and NGOs — many of which are European themselves — to push narratives that align with their ideological aims.

JD Vance’s recent Munich speech highlighted this troubling dynamic. On the surface, his speech chastised Europeans about their drift toward authoritarianism and away from free speech. The indirect message was that NATO security guarantees are not unconditional—if Europe abandons the values that align it with America, it will abandon the benefits of that alignment as well. Put more directly, Vance issued a warning: Europe must cease its information warfare against the United States.

The timing of this warning, so soon after the inauguration of the Trump administration, was no coincidence. The Europeans, emboldened by the Biden administration’s tacit support, had ramped up their censorship efforts — not just within their own borders but increasingly in the United States itself. This necessitated an immediate signal that such interference would no longer be tolerated.

At the heart of this censorship campaign is the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which came into force in 2022. The DSA bans “harmful” online content, requiring platforms to swiftly remove material deemed false, hateful, or dangerous. Platforms face fines of up to 6 percent of their annual global revenue if they fail to comply. Crucially, these decisions are made by European bureaucrats and enforced globally, bypassing America’s First Amendment protections. The mere threat of such punishments has a chilling effect on U.S. platforms, which often preemptively censor content to avoid conflict. 

This danger isn’t theoretical. In August 2024, then–E.U. Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton publicly warned Elon Musk against hosting an interview with then-presidential candidate Donald Trump on X (formerly Twitter), citing potential DSA violations over “harmful content.” Musk defied the warning, and the E.U. has since escalated its investigation — demanding internal algorithm documents from X and threatening the platform with billions of dollars in fines for alleged breaches. 

The E.U.’s censorship push isn’t new. In 2016, under E.U. pressure, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube signed what was effectively the DSA’s forerunner, the “Code of Conduct on Countering Illegal Hate Speech Online.” This agreement required rapid removal of flagged content based on recommendations from designated “trusted reporters” — a network of leftist media groups and NGOs, often bankrolled by European states.

Germany’s 2017 Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG) and the U.K.’s 2023 Online Safety Act further entrenched this censorship model, criminalizing vaguely defined “misinformation” and empowering authorities to suppress speech that causes “needless anxiety” or “non-trivial psychological harm.” A 2024 study on NetzDG’s impact found that nearly all Facebook posts deleted under the law were legally permissible — not just by U.S. standards, but under European law as well. Facing the threat of aggressive enforcement, Facebook erred on the side of censorship, shaping content moderation policies worldwide. The law wasn’t removing illegal content. It was suppressing lawful speech based on ideological preferences.

Incredibly, the Biden administration actively encouraged this censorship creep. In 2024, Secretary of State Antony Blinken reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to cooperating with the E.U. on platform regulation. Blinken endorsed the DSA’s goals, including tackling “gender-based violence online,” promoting “platform accountability,” and ensuring platforms “contribute to an online environment that protects, empowers, and respects their users.” While framed as safeguarding digital spaces, these policies amounted to U.S. support for European-style censorship, wholly incompatible with the First Amendment.

Setting aside Europe’s censorship laws themselves, one of the most egregious examples of Europe’s influence over American speech is the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a group with close ties to U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party whose stated goal is to “kill Musk’s Twitter.” The CCDH has targeted conservative commentators and pressured tech companies to deplatform COVID-19 vaccine skeptics, including now–Health and Human Services chief Robert F. Kennedy Jr. It has also collaborated with Senator Amy Klobuchar to push for censorship under the guise of combating “misinformation.”

Another British group, the Global Disinformation Index, has pressured advertisers to blacklist publications it deems “dangerous,” including the libertarian news site Reason. Even more troubling, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the State Department have supported both groups, effectively sponsoring censorship campaigns that target American speech.

That it reached this point without significant public outcry speaks to the insidious nature of European influence. While American conservatives have long recognized the left-wing bias of domestic media, they have largely overlooked how European actors have steadily pressured U.S. social media companies and leveraged fact-checking organizations and NGOs to push censorship norms that would be unthinkable under the First Amendment.

The most alarming part of this story — and the greatest warning for the future — is that the Biden administration didn’t just tolerate this warfare; it actively supported and funded it. Under Biden, global censorship efforts escalated into a coordinated strategy to bypass the First Amendment. This involved not only outsourcing censorship to private tech companies, as revealed in the “Twitter Files,” but also outsourcing these unconstitutional interventions to European groups, governments, and the E.U. itself.

While much attention has rightly been given to “lawfare” — the use of legal tactics to target political opponents — information warfare may pose an even greater threat. Lawfare, though highly damaging, operates within institutions that are ultimately subject to public scrutiny and appeals. Information warfare, by contrast, is far more insidious. It manipulates public perception, shapes cultural norms, and suppresses dissent — all without oversight. It works in the shadows, embedding narratives that quietly reshape society itself. It also strikes at the very foundation of democracy: the free exchange of ideas. A public fed manipulated narratives and shielded from alternative viewpoints loses its ability to make informed decisions. Worse still, those subject to such manipulation may never recognize what has occurred, leaving them vulnerable to further deception and control.

Vance’s warning was clear: The U.S. cannot save Europe from itself — it may already be too late for that — but it will no longer tolerate supposed allies waging information warfare on American soil. The Biden administration’s collusion with European censors is a stark reminder that the fight for free speech never ends. As Thomas Jefferson warned, “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.” Free speech must be defended relentlessly, against enemies both foreign and domestic.