Tag: censorship

Trump Admin To Launch New Free-Speech Site To Combat Censorship Abroad

In response to what the Trump administration says is a rising tide of censorship in Europe, the State Department is launching a new app that will give users worldwide access to content that has been censored in other countries.

This includes not only Europe but also China and Iran. The platform, called Freedom.gov, will go live over the next several weeks, according to the State Department, and will be operable on iOS and Android devices.

“Freedom.gov is the latest in a long line of efforts by the State Department to protect and promote fundamental freedoms, both online and offline,” the State Department stated in an email to The Epoch Times. “The project will be global in its scope, but distinctly American in its mission: commemorating our commitment to free expression as we approach our 250th birthday.”

Lauding the move, Jeremy Tedesco, senior counsel at the Alliance Defending Freedom, a civil rights legal group that has been critical of recent EU speech laws, stated on X that “for 250 years, this is what America does,” citing examples such as Radio Free Europe, which broadcast into communist countries during the Cold War.

“If Europe’s bureaucrats don’t want you to see it, that tells you everything,” Tedesco stated. “Because even if your government fears freedom—ours doesn’t.”

The First Amendment, which prohibits the U.S. government from “abridging the freedom of speech,” has provided a legal restraint against government censorship that most other countries lack. 

Recent European speech laws, most notably the Digital Services Act (DSA), were ostensibly written to combat what lawmakers deemed “hate speech,” “harmful speech,” and “misinformation,” as well as pornography and abusive AI deep fakes. But critics of European speech codes say they are becoming increasingly draconian.  

In 2025, Virginie Joron, a French member of the European Parliament, called the DSA a “Trojan horse for surveillance and control.”

In Finland, Paivi Rasanen, a member of parliament, was charged for quoting Bible verses online in 2019, criticizing her church’s participation in a gay pride event. 

“I never imagined that quoting the Bible in a Twitter post would lead to years of criminal charges, yet this is now the reality in Europe,” she told The Epoch Times.

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Jiminy Cricket, German Hurt #Feelingz Strike Again

This is your weekly reminder that just because the Europeans do wounded vanity, umbrage, and virtue-signaling lectures so much better than we do doesn’t necessarily mean that what is issuing forth from their sanctimonious streusel holes matches what their barely restrained authoritarian instincts are doing in actuality.

One of the best ways to highlight the dual nature of their conflicted existence is to pick some of the subjects that constitute their favorite defensive posturing. A couple that are really getting worn out in tussles against the Americans are ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy.’ These are often used interchangeably, or, even better, when they combine them for what Europeans perceive as a coup de grâce argument-ender.

This is all well and good posturing in the Never Never Land of diplomatic sword crossing for public effect. But in the trenches, streets, and homes of regular citizens, mayhap things look a little different than the rosy, beatific picture of pastoral freedoms and hives of honey-laden democracy painted by the Brussels Brahmins from their castles.

A prime example has surfaced.

I’ve often written of the skeletal, scarecrowish, bespectacled creature who clings with bony fingers to visions of wielding outsized international influence even as he reigns over the meltdown of his own once prosperous and mighty economy as Chancellor of Germany. From the very beginning, from the day after his election, in fact, I dubbed the risible Friedrich Merz ‘Master of the Old Magoo‘ in reference to his chameleon-like ability to change his colors – and dump his promises – at a moment’s notice.

This conscience-free, unscrupulous, ethically unconcerned style of governance has not gone unnoticed or is much appreciated by Germans themselves, and imagine that. It’s kind of like being a dewy-eyed Spanberger or Mamdani voter right about now, only Germany is more of a police state trying to deal with it.

Did I say that?

*checks notes*

Why, yes. Yes, I did.

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EU Defends Censorship Law While Commission Staff Shift to Auto-Deleting Signal Messages

A senior European Union official responsible for enforcing online speech rules is objecting to what he describes as intimidation by Washington, even as his own agency advances policies that expand state involvement in digital expression and private communications.

Speaking Monday at the University of Amsterdam, Prabhat Agarwal, who leads enforcement of the Digital Services Act at the European Commission, urged regulators and civil society groups not to retreat under pressure from the United States. His remarks followed the February 3 release of a report by the US House Judiciary Committee that included the names and email addresses of staff involved in enforcing and promoting Europe’s censorship laws.

“Don’t let yourself be scared. We at the Commission stand by the European civil society organizations that have been threatened, and we stand by our teams as well,” Agarwal said, as reported by Politico.

The report’s publication came shortly after Washington barred a former senior EU official and two civil society representatives from entering the United States. European officials interpreted those moves as an effort to deter implementation of the DSA, the bloc’s flagship content regulation framework governing large online platforms.

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Starmer Announces Yet More Censorship

Even more censorship is on the way. The Government has announced plans to force AI chatbots to comply with malicious communications laws – and to give itself Orwellian powers to bring in yet more speech restrictions without Parliamentary oversight. Toby writes about the moves in the Telegraph.

The Government intends to bring forward amendments of its own to the schools Bill that will supposedly close a loophole in the Online Safety Act to make sure AI chatbots comply with Britain’s draconian censorship laws. That will mean that if Grok says something in response to a user prompt that breaches, say, the Malicious Communications Act 1988, which was designed to protect women from obscene phone calls, Ofcom can fine its parent company £18 million or 10% of its annual global turnover. Whichever is the highest.

This will be the death knell of Britain’s burgeoning AI sector, particularly as chatbots become more autonomous. What tech entrepreneur will risk setting up an AI company in the UK, knowing that if a chatbot shares an anti-immigration meme or misgenders a trans person, it could mean a swingeing fine?

Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if xAI, along with OpenAI and Anthropic, decide to withdraw access to their chatbots from UK residents. At the very least, we’ll be saddled with lobotomised versions that trot out progressive bromides whenever they’re asked a political question.

In addition, the Government has said it will pass a new law to stop children sending or receiving nude images. Needless to say, that’s already a criminal offence under the Protection of Children Act 1978, so what does the Government have in mind?

It has not said, but I fear it means embedding surveillance software in every smartphone to enable the authorities to monitor users’ activity, no doubt accompanied by mandatory digital ID so no one will be able to hide. Not even the People’s Republic of China does that.

The Government unveiled some other Orwellian measures, but rather than bring them in as revisions to the schools Bill, it will put through amendments that will enable it to make further changes to Britain’s censorship regime via secondary legislation, i.e., it will grant itself sweeping Henry VIII powers.

It’s worth bearing in mind that secondary legislation cannot be amended and allows little time for debate. The Government’s excessive reliance on secondary legislation has been criticised by the House of Lords Constitution Committee and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee.

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US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

The U.S. State Department is developing an online portal that will enable people in Europe and elsewhere to see content banned by their governments including alleged hate speech and terrorist propaganda, a move Washington views as a way to counter censorship, three sources familiar with the plan said.

The site will be hosted at “freedom.gov,” the sources said. One source said officials had discussed including a virtual private network function to make a user’s traffic appear to originate in the U.S. and added that user activity on the site will not be tracked.

Headed by Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers, the project was expected to be unveiled at last week’s Munich Security Conference but was delayed, the sources said.

Reuters could not determine why the launch did not happen, but some State Department officials, including lawyers, have raised concerns about the plan, two of the sources said, without detailing the concerns.

The project could further strain ties between the Trump administration and traditional U.S. allies in Europe, already heightened by disputes over trade, Russia’s war in Ukraine and President Donald Trump’s push to assert control over Greenland.

The portal could also put Washington in the unfamiliar position of appearing to encourage citizens to flout local laws.

In a statement to Reuters, a State Department spokesperson said the U.S. government does not have a censorship-circumvention program specific to Europe but added: “Digital freedom is a priority for the State Department, however, and that includes the proliferation of privacy and censorship-circumvention technologies like VPNs.”

The spokesperson denied any announcement had been delayed and said it was inaccurate that State Department lawyers had raised concerns.

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Senators Talk Digital Freedom for Iran While Expanding Surveillance at Home

Three US senators want federal funding to help Iranians bypass censorship and access VPNs. The same three senators have spent years supporting the surveillance systems that track Americans online.

We obtained a copy of their letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio for you here.

Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), James Lankford (R-OK), and Jacky Rosen (D-NV) are backing funding for anti-censorship technology and virtual private networks abroad.

Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), whose privacy record is largely clean, is also supporting the effort. The bipartisan coalition wants to help people circumvent government internet controls. Just not the American government’s internet controls.

Graham’s voting record reads like a blueprint for the surveillance state he claims to oppose overseas. He voted for the Patriot Act in 2001 and has supported every major expansion since. When Section 702 of FISA came up for reauthorization, Graham backed it. When Congress considered making Section 702 permanent in 2017 with no sunset clauses and no congressional review, Graham backed that too.

His encryption stance is just as consistent. Graham co-sponsored the EARN IT Act in 2020, which would pressure platforms to weaken encryption to avoid liability.

He also backed the Lawful Access to Encrypted Data (LAED) Act, a bill that would require companies to build backdoors into their security systems. VPNs work because of encryption. Graham has spent years trying to break it.

He’s also pushed to repeal Section 230 protections and supported requiring government licenses for companies offering AI tools. When surveillance mechanisms he championed caught his own communications, Graham complained. Privacy for senators. Mass surveillance for everyone else.

Lankford introduced the Free Speech Fairness Act, which removed restrictions on political speech by religious and nonprofit organizations. That same senator has backed the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which will likely require platforms to implement age verification and give regulators the power to pressure companies into removing content.

He called for Section 230 to be “ripped up” and backed a national strategy against antisemitism that includes government coordination on speech. When Edward Snowden revealed the scope of NSA surveillance, Lankford branded him a traitor for telling the public what their government was doing.

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Key Architect of ‘Disinformation Dozen’ List Resigns After ‘Epstein Files’ Reveal Tangled Web of Censorship

The 2021 publication of “The Disinformation Dozen” list of 12 “leading online anti-vaxxers” sparked efforts to discredit U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Sayer Ji and other outspoken critics of COVID-19 pandemic policies and vaccines.

Five years later, the release of the “Epstein Files” has led to the resignation of one of the list’s architects — Morgan McSweeney.

McSweeney, chief of staff to U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, resigned Sunday. In 2018, he co-founded what later became known as the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), which published the “Disinformation Dozen” list.

McSweeney’s resignation stemmed from his prior support for Peter Mandelson, former U.K. ambassador to the U.S.

Mandelson is implicated in the Epstein Files for his close ties to disgraced financier and registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. McSweeney had advised Starmer to appoint Mandelson to his ambassadorial post.

Starmer removed Mandelson from his post in September 2025, after emails between Mandelson and Epstein were made public. In the emails, Mandelson suggested that Epstein’s 2008 conviction for soliciting sex from a child prostitute was wrongful and should be overturned.

The Epstein Files also showed that Mandelson shared sensitive government information with Epstein. The U.K. Metropolitan Police launched a criminal investigation of Mandelson, while Starmer apologized to Epstein’s sex-trafficking victims.

In his resignation letter, McSweeney took “full responsibility” for advising Starmer to appoint Mandelson.

But Ji, listed as one of the “Disinformation Dozen,” told The Defender McSweeney’s resignation shows that “the architecture behind a decade of political censorship is coming into view.”

“The same political culture that normalized backroom routing of power, deniability, and proxy enforcement is the culture that produced CCDH — and shielded it from scrutiny while it reshaped public discourse on both sides of the Atlantic,” Ji wrote on Substack.

In its early years, CCDH targeted left-wing political figures and independent media outlets in the U.K. with claims of antisemitism. Later, it targeted “misinformation” and “disinformation” in the U.S.

The Biden administration and corporate media used the “Disinformation Dozen” list to discredit figures like Kennedy and Ji. Social media platforms deplatformed those included on the list.

Internal documents leaked in 2024 showed that CCDH sought to launch “Black Ops” against Kennedy and “kill Musk’s Twitter” — now known as X. “Black ops” refers to secret operations carried out by governments or other organizations that hide their involvement.

The Epstein Files don’t contain evidence indicating Epstein was involved in CCDH’s operations, Ji said. But they do reveal an “operational lineage” connecting Epstein to figures like Mandelson and McSweeney, revealing “the hidden origins of CCDH — and the elite networks now illuminated by the Epstein files.”

“The Epstein files help explain why censorship became so aggressive,” said Seamus Bruner, director of research at the Government Accountability Institute. “CCDH and similar entities functioned less as neutral watchdogs and more as enforcement mechanisms — protecting systems, not public discourse.”

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UK Regulator Ofcom Proposes Second Fine Against US Platform 4chan

Britain’s speech regulator, Ofcom, has proposed another financial penalty against 4chan under the Online Safety Act, deepening a censorship dispute that stretches from London to Washington.

4chan is an American platform, hosted in the United States, with no presence in Britain. Yet under the Online Safety Act, Ofcom believes that this falls under its authority.

Tensions increased after Ofcom declined to provide 4chan with a copy of its provisional decision before announcing the outcome publicly. According to the platform’s legal team, this decision limited its ability to respond in real time.

Preston Byrne, counsel for 4chan, stated that the regulator’s refusal was intended “to deny us the opportunity for a public rebuttal.”

He further accused the regulator of engaging in “domestic narrative control” by withholding advance access to the decision while preparing to publish its conclusions.

Ofcom announced that it has escalated its enforcement action against 4chan, stating: “In accordance with section 130 of the Online Safety Act 2023, we have today issued 4chan Community Support LLC with a provisional notice of contravention.”

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Russia Limits Access to Social Media Platform Telegram as It Pushes State-Run ‘Super-App’ Called Max – UPDATE: WhatsApp and YouTube Fully Blocked by Moscow

Russia turns on Telegram.

All around the world, social media companies are under pressure from state actors, and our hard-won freedom of speech is under threat in the process.

Case in point: Russia.

Having banned US platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and X, and limited access to YouTube, the Russian government now turns on Telegram – a very popular app used by Russian soldiers and war correspondents.

Yesterday (11), Russia’s communications watchdog, Roskomnadzor, started limiting access to Telegram.

Bloomberg reported:

“Measures to slow down access to the messenger service have already begun, the news service reported, citing another person familiar that it didn’t identify. RBC said it sent a request for comment to Roskomnadzor.

The government has been promoting the use of a state-run ‘super-app’ called Max, modeled after China’s WeChat, at the same time as it has choked off access to foreign messenger services. As well as messaging, Max hosts government services and enables document storage, banking and other public and commercial services.”

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Congressional Report Warns Britain Is Exporting Censorship Worldwide

The government of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been directly named in a new United States congressional report that condemns Britain for adopting what it calls “copycat censorship laws,” warning that the country’s digital regulations now pose “a direct threat” to free speech.

The document, published by the United States House Committee on the Judiciary, describes an expanding campaign led by the European Commission to impose “strict digital censorship laws” on global technology platforms.

Lawmakers in Washington identified the Online Safety Act as the clearest example of this approach spreading beyond the European Union.

The Act was introduced with the stated goal of improving online safety, but it requires platforms such as X, Reddit, and TikTok to install age verification systems and remove material deemed harmful by regulators.

US lawmakers say these provisions give the British government broad authority to dictate what can and cannot be said online.

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