Tag: censorship

Pakistan Blocks Major VPNs Under New Licensing Rules, Expanding State Control Over Internet Access

Over the past two weeks, internet users in Pakistan have watched their encrypted connections vanish one after another. Beginning December 22, 2025, major VPNs, including Proton VPN, NordVPN, ExpressVPN, Surfshark, Mullvad, Cloudflare WARP, and Psiphon have been systematically blocked across the country, according to Daily Pakistan.

The blackout follows a government licensing framework that, on paper, regulates VPN providers but in practice gives the state the power to decide which privacy tools are permitted.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) began enforcing its Class Value Added Services (CVAS-Data) licensing rules in November 2025, nearly a year after quietly introducing the policy.

Under these regulations, companies that want to operate legally must install “Legal Interception” compliant hardware and hand it over “to nationally authorized security organizations” at their own expense whenever instructed.

Any VPN not listed as licensed is automatically subject to blocking by domestic internet providers.

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EU Veterans Rally to Recast the Digital Services Act as Accountability Not Control

It’s not every day that a collection of retired European grandees emerges from Brussels’ revolving doors to tell everyone how misunderstood the European Union is.

Yet here we are, with Bertrand Badré, Margrethe Vestager, Mariya Gabriel, Nicolas Schmit, and Guillaume Klossa linking arms to pen a sentimental defense of the bloc’s new digital commandments.

Their essay, “The Truth About Europe’s Regulation of Digital Platforms,” aims to assure us that Europe’s online rulebook, the Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA), does not constitute censorship. It is “accountability,” they say.

In their telling, the DSA is less a blunt legal instrument than a moral document, a kind of digital Magna Carta designed to civilize Silicon Valley’s chaotic playground.

“There is no content regulation at the EU level,” they wrote, invoking the phrase like a magic spell meant to ward off skeptics.

The laws, they explained, simply make big tech companies “evaluate and mitigate systemic risks” and “act against illegal content.” Nothing to see here, just a little transparency, a dash of democracy protection, and the occasional removal of whatever a member state happens to call “illegal.”

It is the sort of language that can only come from officials who have spent decades describing regulation as liberation.

The letter was a response to a growing chorus of critics, including former US officials, who say Europe’s digital regime gives bureaucrats indirect control over what billions of people can see or say online.

Under the DSA, platforms must scan for “harmful or misleading” content, report their mitigation efforts, and warn users when something gets zapped.

Free speech groups have pointed out that when the law tells companies to “evaluate risks to democracy,” those companies tend to err on the side of deleting anything remotely controversial.

To them, “mitigation” often means mass deletion.

Badré and company brushed this off. “When we require platforms to be transparent about their algorithms, to assess risks to democracy and mental health, to remove clearly illegal content while notifying those affected, we are not censoring,” they wrote.

“We are insisting that companies with unprecedented power over public discourse operate with some measure of public accountability.”

When Europe does it, it is not censorship, it is civic hygiene.

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4chan and Kiwi Farms Tell Ofcom It Can’t Censor and Run From Lawsuits

Attorneys representing 4chan and Kiwi Farms have filed an opposition to the UK Office of Communications’ (Ofcom) motion to dismiss their US lawsuit, arguing that the British regulator’s attempt to enforce its Online Safety Act (OSA) on American platforms amounts to unlawful foreign censorship and overreach into the United States’ constitutional domain.

The filing, made in the US District Court for the District of Columbia on December 29, 2025, contends that Ofcom’s actions, sending legally binding “Section 100 Orders” via email to compel compliance with the OSA, violate US sovereignty and the First Amendment.

We obtained a copy of the filing for you here.

The plaintiffs assert that Ofcom’s conduct has no legal force in the United States because it bypassed all recognized international service procedures, including the Hague Service Convention and the US–UK Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty.

Lawyers Ron Coleman and Preston Byrne argue that Ofcom’s regulatory model functions like a commercial enterprise rather than a sovereign body, funded through fees extracted from companies it regulates.

Under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, the plaintiffs maintain that this structure places Ofcom’s operations within the “commercial activity” exception, thereby stripping it of immunity from suit in US courts.

The opposition brief situates the dispute within a broader geopolitical context, describing a “diplomatic standoff” between Washington and London over the reach of online speech laws.

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‘We are the free world now’ — Europe declares war on free speech in the US

“We are the free world now.” Those words from Raphael Glucksmann, a French socialist member of the European Parliament, captured the pearl-clutching outrage of Europeans after the Trump administration did what no prior administration has ever done — stand up to Europe to defend the freedom of speech.

This week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio barred five figures closely associated with European censorship efforts from traveling to the U.S. This includes Thierry Breton, the former European Union commissioner responsible for digital policy.

In a post on X, Rubio declared that the U.S. “will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship” and will target “leading figures of the global censorship-industrial complex from entering the United States.”

Breton achieved infamy as one of the architects of the massive EU censorship system, which is now being globalized. Armed with the notorious Digital Service Act, Breton and others threatened American companies and officials that they would have to yield to European standards of free speech. After Breton learned that Musk was planning to interview Trump before the last presidential election, he even warned the X owner that he would be “monitored” and potentially subject to EU fines.

Socialist Glucksmann is now irate at “this scandalous sanction against Thierry Breton.”

“We are Europeans,” he declared. “We must defend our laws, our principles, our interests.” In other words, this is a war over whether Europe or the U.S. Constitution will dictate the scope of free speech for American companies and citizens.

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DOJ scrambles to find VOLUNTEERS to help redact new Epstein files after sleuths used simple method to crack censored documents

The Justice Department is seeking volunteers to help redact more Epstein files over the ‘next several days,’ it has emerged.

A supervising prosecutor announced an ’emergency request’ from the DOJ to help with ‘remote document review and redactions related to the Epstein files,’ according to an internal email sent to the Southern District of Florida‘s US Attorney’s Office.

The email, which was reviewed by CNN, suggests the DOJ will release more files related to pedophile Jeffrey Epstein over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. 

‘I am aware that the timing could not be worse,’ the official reportedly wrote in Tuesday’s email asking career prosecutors for assistance. ‘For some the holidays are about to begin, but I know that for others the holidays are coming to an end.’ 

The supervising prosecutor cited how officials have an ‘obligation to the public to release’ the files but in order to do so must make ‘certain redactions’ to ‘protect the identity of the victims, among other things.’

The DOJ has released a massive trove of Epstein files already, but there are many more to come with officials noting that overall there are hundreds of thousands of documents set to be released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

Some of the files released by the DOJ were improperly redacted, allowing sleuths to easily reveal the censored information by copying and pasting blacked-out text into a word processing document, the New York Times reported.

The hack allowed viewers to reveal previously withheld names and entities. It also revealed additional details of Epstein’s alleged abuse – which the Daily Mail has opted not to publish – and money concealment tactics.

The Daily Mail understands the redactions that sleuths were able to hack through were applied by various courts, whose documents were then handed over to the DOJ and published in the Epstein files. Files redacted by the DOJ and FBI were unaffected.

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Macron accuses US of ‘intimidation’ against EU

US visa restrictions against several senior EU officials amount to “intimidation and coercion” aimed at undermining the bloc’s digital policies and sovereignty, French President Emmanuel Macron has said.

On Tuesday, the administration of US President Donald Trump announced new sanctions targeting Thierry Breton, the former European Commissioner for Internal Market appointed by Macron himself, and four other officials over what it described as “efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose.”

At the core of the dispute are the EU’s Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act, which impose strict competition and transparency obligations on large online platforms. Given that most such firms – including Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Amazon – are headquartered in the US, American officials have argued the framework is discriminatory. Breton in particular was among the officials who played a pivotal role in establishing the EU digital rulebook.

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Trump State Department Bars EU-Linked Globalists from Entry for Pushing Anti-Free Speech Censorship

The US Department of State, under the direction of Marco Rubio, has taken a rare and decisive step against European political figures accused of acting against American interests, barring several prominent individuals who’ve sought to censor free and open dialogue on American platforms.

The bold move signals a sharp and definitive break from years of deference—and even subservience—to Brussels’ ever-increasing, draconian regulatory ambitions.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio rightly framed the action as a defense of American free speech against what he described as organized, ideological pressure from abroad. He made it crystal clear that the era of tolerating overseas attempts to silence U.S. voices and American positions is over.

In a post on X, Rubio Wrote: “For far too long, ideologues in Europe have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose. The Trump administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship.

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Google and Substack Warn Britain Is Building a Censorship Machine

Major American companies and commentators, including Google and Substack CEO Chris Best, have condemned the United Kingdom’s censorship law, the Online Safety Act (OSA), describing it as a measure that risks censoring lawful speech while failing to make the internet safer for children.

They argue that the law normalizes digital surveillance, restricts open debate, and complicates how global platforms operate in the UK.

Their objections surfaced through The Telegraph, which published essays from Best and from Heritage Foundation researchers John Peluso and Miles Pollard, alongside new reporting on Google’s formal response to an Ofcom consultation.

That consultation, focused on how tech firms should prevent “potentially illegal” material from spreading online, closed in October, with Ofcom releasing the submissions in December.

Google’s filing accused the regulator of promoting rules that would “undermine users’ rights to freedom of expression” by encouraging pre-emptive content suppression.

Ofcom rejected this view, insisting that “nothing in our proposals would require sites and apps to take down legal content.” Yet Google was hardly alone in raising alarms: other American companies and trade groups submitted responses voicing comparable fears about the Act’s scope and implications.

Chris Best wrote that his company initially set out to comply with the new law but quickly discovered it to be far more intrusive than expected. “What I’ve learned is that, in practice, it pushes toward something much darker: a system of mass political censorship unlike anywhere else in the western world,” he said.

Best describes how the OSA effectively forces platforms to classify and filter speech on a constant basis, anticipating what regulators might later deem harmful.

Compliance, he explained, requires “armies of human moderators or AI” to scan journalism, commentary, and even satire for potential risk.

The process, he continued, doesn’t simply remove content but “gates it” behind identity checks or age-verification hurdles that often involve facial scans or ID uploads.

“These measures don’t technically block the content,” Best said, “but they gate it behind steps that prove a hassle at best, and an invasion of privacy at worst.” He warned that this structure discourages readers, reduces visibility for writers, and weakens open cultural exchange.

Best, who emphasized Substack’s commitment to press freedom, said the OSA misdiagnoses the problem of online harm by targeting speech rather than prosecuting actual abuse or criminal behavior.

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Irony Alert: Google Suddenly Champions Free Speech As UK Crushes Online Expression

In a stunning reversal, Google has slammed the UK for threatening to stifle free speech through its aggressive online regulations. This from the company infamous for its own censorship crusades against conservative voices and inconvenient truths. If even Google is raising the alarm, you know the situation in Britain has hit rock bottom.

The move signals a broader culture shift in Big Tech, where woke agendas are crumbling under pressure from free speech advocates. It’s no coincidence this comes after Elon Musk turned Twitter into X, a platform where ideas flow without the heavy hand of ideological gatekeepers.

Google, which has demonetized, shadow-banned, and outright censored content that doesn’t align with leftist narratives, now positions itself as a defender of open discourse, accusing Britain of threatening to stifle free speech in an escalation of US opposition to online safety rules.

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Why Should Americans Die For European Tyranny?

After the European Commission levied a several-hundred-million-dollar fine on Elon Musk and his social media platform X earlier this month, journalist Michael Shellenberger wrote a damning post in which he excoriated Europe’s rank censorship and state-sponsored propaganda.  He accused the commission of engaging “in a deception campaign aimed at confusing” Europeans and Americans into thinking that European elites’ “goal” is anything other than “to censor the American people.”

Shellenberger pointed out that Musk’s fine came while European governments are demanding backdoor access to all private text messages (under the pretense of combatting the transmission of child pornography) and creating a so-called “Democracy Shield” of government-funded “fact-checkers” that enables “censorship by proxy.”  He also noted that the European Commission announced the fine to coincide with the rollout of the Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy, in which President Trump makes this promise: “We will oppose elite-driven, anti-democratic restrictions on core liberties in Europe, the Anglosphere, and the rest of the democratic world, especially among our allies.”

Shellenberger put two and two together to make a provocative observation:

“The EU is now in direct violation of the NATO Treaty,” which “requires member states to have free speech and free and fair elections.  France and Germany are actively and illegally preventing political candidates from running for office for ideological reasons, namely their opposition to mass migration.  And the Romanian high court, with the support of the European Commission, nullified election results under the thin and unproven pretext of Russian interference, after a nationalist and populist presidential candidate won.”

As a parting shot, Shellenberger accused the European political class of betraying its own constitution, a document that purports to protect free speech:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of expression.  This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority.”  

How can the European Commission pretend to defend its own charter when it seeks to eradicate the free exchange of ideas on X, censor Americans’ speech, spy on citizens’ private text messages, and create an army of government-funded NGOs to justify censorship and push the commission’s propaganda?

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