- EU report reveals secret EU pressure on U.S. tech firms to censor American speech.
- The EU used closed-door meetings to push its speech laws onto U.S. platforms.
- Targets included COVID-19 debate, political satire, and dissent.
- The EU's Digital Services Act forces global policy changes affecting U.S. users.
- The effort is described as an end-run around the First Amendment.
A powerful congressional committee has laid bare a secretive, years-long campaign by European Union regulators to pressure American social media companies into censoring the speech of U.S. citizens on topics ranging from COVID-19 vaccines to political satire. The explosive findings reveal a deliberate effort to bypass the First Amendment and impose foreign speech standards domestically.
The U.S. House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), published a 160-page interim report last week accusing the EU of “trying to make an end-run around the First Amendment and censor US speech that does not align with its preferred narratives.” The report, described by French newspaper Le Monde as “scathing,” is based on thousands of internal documents obtained from major tech firms.
According to the committee, EU officials held more than 100 closed-door meetings with platform representatives since 2020. Their goal was to force companies to apply European speech laws, including the Digital Services Act (DSA), to content posted in the United States. The report states this was an effort to “censor the global internet.”
Targeting dissent and debate
The alleged censorship targeted some of the most contentious issues in recent public discourse. “Though often framed as combating so-called ‘hate speech’ or ‘disinformation,’ the European Commission worked to censor true information and political speech about some of the most important policy debates in recent history — including the COVID-19 pandemic,” the report states.
Specific targets included political satire, “populist rhetoric,” “anti-government/anti-EU” postings, and “meme subculture.” Internal emails show EU officials, including President Ursula von der Leyen and former Vice President V?ra Jourová, repeatedly urging platforms to regulate speech about COVID-19 and vaccines. In one October 2020 email labelled a “kind request,” the Commission told platforms it “will be essential in the next stages to pay special attention to the vaccination aspect.”
The pressure was not confined to health topics. Ahead of the 2024 U.S. election, Jourová traveled to California to discuss content moderation with tech companies. When asked if discussions were limited to EU elections, the recorded response was, “We are interested in both.”
A global censorship framework
The mechanism for this overreach, the report argues, is the EU’s DSA. While the EU claims the law applies only within its borders, platforms typically enforce a single set of global content policies. Therefore, changes made to satisfy European regulators affect users everywhere. The report notes that in 2024, TikTok revised its global Community Guidelines specifically to “comply with the Digital Services Act,” introducing vague new rules against “marginalizing speech” and “civic harm misinformation.”
“To put it plainly, an EU law caused one of the world’s largest social media platforms to censor true information in the United States and around the world,” the report concludes. It describes the imposed standards as “inherently subjective and easily weaponized against the European Commission’s political opposition.”
Victims and enablers
The report’s release was followed by a House Judiciary Committee hearing featuring witnesses described by Jordan as “victims of European censorship.” They included Irish comedian Graham Linehan, arrested for posts critical of gender ideology, and Finnish MP Päivi Räsänen, prosecuted for quoting the New Testament online.
Attorney W. Scott McCollough suggested the EU’s actions stem from a fear of open discourse. “They’re scared. This kind of reaction is really representative of fear of loss of control,” he said. He also argued the Biden administration was “in lockstep” with the EU’s efforts, putting “the same kind of direct and indirect pressure on these platforms.”
This report pulls back the curtain on a quiet but profound shift in who controls the digital public square. It reveals how foreign regulators, leveraging the global reach of American tech companies, have built a backdoor for censoring speech that is fully protected under U.S. law. The battle over what you can say online is no longer just domestic; it is being shaped in closed-door meetings an ocean away, challenging the very notion of American sovereignty over its own discourse.
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