"WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration is ramping up attacks on Europe's digital rules, opening a new front in Washington's pressure campaign on longtime allies that combines assertions of defending free speech with efforts to protect commercial interests.
Much of the initiative is led by the State Department, which recently sent a request to its offices around Europe seeking "examples of government efforts to limit freedom of speech," according to a copy reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The push centers on European Union legislation that aims to establish standards for how tech giants including Apple, Google-parent Alphabet, Amazon.com and Meta Platforms should police content. The U.S. "is committed to shutting down the global censorship-industrial complex," said another State Department communication seen by the Journal.
The clash over Europe's digital policies comes as trans-Atlantic ties are strained over Trump's decision to impose tariffs and engage with Russia while cooling toward Ukraine, among other issues. Trump and his team have voiced antipathy for the EU.
At the heart of the new push is the EU's Digital Services Act, adopted in 2022, which regulates European activities of the world's largest digital platforms, many of which are American. The DSA requires platforms to show they are taking steps to address certain risks, including the use of disinformation to manipulate election results.
Trump officials say that because the internet is inherently global, any restrictions platforms impose in the EU might transfer to the U.S.
EU officials say the law, which only applies in the EU, doesn't threaten free speech and is designed to protect Europeans' basic rights and to help keep children safe online. They say the legislation includes measures to protect users from censorship and increase platforms' transparency.
"The DSA is absolutely not a censorship tool," European Commission spokesman Thomas Regnier said.
The Trump administration campaign is a departure from past U.S. policy, which was more supportive of European governments and stressed the need to respond to attempts by Russia and other countries to sow disinformation and manipulate Western politics.
"We need tools to fight Russia's all-out effort to conduct information warfare around the world, and there is nothing in the European legislation that we in the Biden administration were aware of that infringed on the human rights of Americans or Europeans," said James Rubin, who led a State Department office that sought to combat foreign disinformation abroad. The Trump administration has closed the office, claiming it could hamper free speech. Rubin said the DSA was "just a way of forcing the social-media companies to live up to their own terms of service."
The State Department's new campaign intensifies administration pressure, by casting the European regulations as endangering basic rights. Internal instructions cite as guidance a speech Vice President JD Vance gave in Munich this year, in which he accused EU "commissars" of censorship.
U.S. diplomats in April told the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a Vienna-based forum promoting international stability, that Washington is "troubled by European efforts to use the Digital Services Act and other means to penalize free speech platforms that refuse to censor content."
The statement, not previously made public, said the U.S. "will take steps to ensure that American companies are not strong-armed into enforcing a European censorship regime that is harmful to American interests, European interests, and the world," according to a copy reviewed by the Journal.
The State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor has been asked to prepare a report condemning the EU for suppressing free expression via the DSA, according to an internal department communication reviewed by the Journal. The State Department didn't respond to a request for comment.
The State Department's campaign is part of an administration-wide effort. Trump in February instructed the secretaries of Treasury and Commerce, and the U.S. Trade Representative, to investigate whether the EU or the U.K. forced U.S. companies' products or services to operate "in ways that undermine freedom of speech and political engagement or otherwise moderate content" and recommend countermeasures.” [1]
Lithuanian Kasčiūnas, pushing fascist laws against freedom of speech might clash with the United States and badly damage Lithuanian national security. There is only a small number of steps between spreading propaganda lies and gas chambers.
1. World News: U.S. Takes Aim at European Digital Laws. Michaels, Daniel; Gordon, Michael R; Kim Mackrael. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 16 May 2025: A7.
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