Among those who think the United States is an unseemly cesspool of unrestrained opinions voiced by those people, Europe is often touted as an alternative for speech regulation. European Union law, following in the footsteps of national legislation, imposes enforceable duties on private platforms to purge “hate speech” and “disinformation”—or else. But free speech advocates warn that these laws are clumsy and dangerous tools that threaten to muzzle expression far beyond the bounds of their nominal targets. They’re right, and they now have receipts.
In a new report, Preventing “Torrents of Hate” or Stifling Free Expression Online?, The Future of Free Speech, a think tank based at Vanderbilt University, points out that online regulation changed in 2017 with Germany’s adoption of the Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG), “which aimed to combat illegal online content such as defamation, incitement, and religious insults.” That law inspired lawmakers around the world, as well as similar E.U.-wide legislation in 2022 in the Digital Services Act (DSA). “The underlying assumptions surrounding the passage of the DSA included fears that the Internet and social media platforms would become overrun with hate and illegal content,” notes the report.
But “hate” and other forms of unacceptable content are often in the eyes of the beholder. And the power to punish platforms for allowing forbidden speech encourages suppressing content.
The DSA “gives way too much power to government agencies to flag and remove potentially illegal content and to uncover data about anonymous speakers,” cautioned the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 2022.
Hellbound and Down 
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