Congress Must Not Allow Foreign Governments To Censor American Speech

The House Judiciary Committee’s recent findings present a simple but unsettling conclusion. American speech is being curtailed in the United States, not because Congress has changed the First Amendment, but because foreign governments have learned how to route around it. Europe’s Digital Services Act, presented as a domestic regulatory framework, has in practice become a lever for global speech control. Its effects now reach deep into the American public square.

To see how this happens, begin with a basic fact about the modern internet. Major platforms operate with global content moderation rules. They do so not out of ideology but out of necessity. Country-by-country speech codes are technically burdensome, expensive, and often incompatible with user privacy. As a result, when a regulator with real enforcement power demands changes to platform rules, those changes are implemented worldwide. This is the pressure point that the European Union has exploited for more than a decade.

The Digital Services Act did not emerge in isolation. It is the culmination of a long campaign by European regulators to shape online discourse. Long before the DSA took effect, the European Commission convened so-called voluntary codes on hate speech and disinformation. These forums were framed as cooperative and consensual. Internal documents now show they were neither. Platform executives understood that participation was mandatory in practice and that failure to comply would invite retaliation once binding law arrived. The DSA was that law.

Under the DSA, platforms face fines of up to 6% of global revenue and, in extreme cases, expulsion from the European market. These penalties are not theoretical. In December 2025, the Commission imposed its first major DSA fine against 𝕏, €120M, nearly the statutory maximum, in a decision that reads less like neutral enforcement than a warning shot. The message was unmistakable. Platforms that resist Europe’s preferred speech norms will pay a price.

What norms are being enforced? The House Judiciary Committee’s report documents repeated pressure to suppress lawful political speech, satire, and even true information. During the COVID pandemic, European officials pressed platforms to rewrite their moderation policies to silence debate over vaccines, transmission, and public health measures. Many of the censored claims later proved accurate. The point is not hindsight. It is that governments asserted the authority to decide which views could be expressed at all.

The same pattern appears in debates over migration, gender ideology, and elections. European regulators encouraged platforms to demote or remove content that was not illegal but deemed harmful to civic discourse. Terms like harmful, misleading, or undermining public trust are inherently subjective. They function as tools of discretion, not law. Once embedded in global moderation rules, they restrict what Americans can say and hear on platforms used every day.

One might object that Europe is entitled to regulate speech within its own borders. That is true. The problem arises when European law is enforced extraterritorially through global platform rules. When Brussels demands a change to community guidelines, Americans feel the effect instantly. A user in Ohio is governed by the same speech code designed to satisfy regulators in Brussels or Paris. This is foreign regulation by proxy.

France offers a vivid illustration. French authorities, working alongside European institutions, have taken an increasingly aggressive posture toward platforms that refuse to bend. In Paris, authorities and Europol raided 𝕏’s offices, demanding internal records and cooperation. French officials have also sought to compel Elon Musk to appear for interrogation, signaling that resistance will be met not only with fines but with personal pressure. These tactics are not aimed at protecting French citizens from crime. They are designed to enforce ideological conformity.

The United Kingdom has followed a similar path. Its Online Safety Act mirrors many of the DSA’s core mechanisms. British regulators now claim authority to punish platforms for hosting speech that is lawful in the United States but disfavored in London. The arrest of individuals over online speech and threats to block platforms like 𝕏 underscore how quickly safety rhetoric slides into coercion.

The House Judiciary Committee’s report draws an unavoidable conclusion. Big Tech companies are not independently choosing to censor Americans. They are responding rationally to overwhelming regulatory pressure from foreign governments. Faced with the choice between access to European markets and the full protection of American speech norms, many companies choose compliance. The First Amendment constrains Congress. It does not constrain Brussels.

This creates a constitutional asymmetry. American lawmakers are bound by the First Amendment. European regulators are not. Yet through global platform governance, European standards increasingly prevail. The result is a de facto rewriting of American speech norms without democratic consent.

What is to be done? Congress cannot regulate European speech. But it can protect American speech. It can make clear that compliance with foreign censorship demands cannot be imposed on U.S. users. It can require transparency when platforms change rules at the behest of foreign governments. It can prohibit the transfer of American user data to foreign regulators seeking to enforce speech codes. And it can condition market access or liability protections on respect for American free expression.

None of this requires hostility toward Europe. It requires clarity about sovereignty. The First Amendment is not a parochial relic. It is a constitutional commitment that speech is not a privilege to be managed by bureaucrats. When foreign governments seek to export censorship through economic leverage, Congress has both the authority and the obligation to respond.

The stakes are not abstract. Speech norms shape political outcomes. The same mechanisms used to suppress debate about vaccines or migration can be turned on elections, dissent, and opposition. The report documents how European officials pressed platforms ahead of U.S. elections, asking about preparations and moderation policies. That alone should concentrate the mind.

Free speech survives not because it is convenient, but because it is defended. The Digital Services Act represents the most ambitious attempt yet to control online discourse across borders. If left unanswered, it will continue to narrow the range of permissible speech in the United States. Congress must act, not to censor in return, but to ensure that American speech remains governed by American law.

If you enjoy my work, please subscribe: https://x.com/amuse.

Sponsored by the John Milton Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to helping independent journalists overcome formidable challenges in today’s media landscape and bring crucial stories to you.