Article US State Department targets ‘decline of UK free speech’ (Brit community)

[stryder]

Lefty Europeans censoring Americans because they can't tell when Trump is just talking off the cuff just shows that they have no clue.
Sanctioning the censors is not, itself, censorship. The only press limited from the White House are those who repeatedly lied.
The UK currently has imgur blocked, not the US. So who's really censoring more?

Wrong.

Imgur self blocked as a protest against changes in UK aimed at stopping children having access or being subjected to pornography.
Apparently the legal changes required anywhere such images might be found to require to age verify, which Imgur didn't want to do (probably because they saw it as a pointless and futile waste of cost and energy)

The UK to my knowledge hasn't blocked anything censorship wise, it will likely just get to the point of taking people to court after a certain amount of time has passed where they assume companies would adjust.

I guess it's all that social media bullshit hype that people are fed on those platforms being used to create hysteria, while of course those platforms shamelessly make money off the noise generated.

[C C]

Sanctioning the censors is not, itself, censorship.

Right. Nobody in the United States is trying to silence or exercise content-control over European or UK media. These European-based activist-run "non-governmental organizations" with quasi-official ("quango") status like the Center for Countering Digital Hate, Global Disinformation Index, or HateAid are perfectly free to continue saying whatever they want to say about the United States and about Americans. Just as the United States is free to say what it pleases about Europe and about what the US perceives as its disfunctional and self-destructive policies. (As we saw with the recent United States National Security Strategy that generated so much anger in the UK and in Europe.)

What the United States Department of State was responding to yesterday were European and UK attempts to cajole and coerce American media to control what Americans are allowed to say here at home. A paradigmatic example was then-EU-commissioner Thierry Breton issuing dark threats against Elon Musk and the X platform before Elon conducted an August 2024 pre-election interview with then-candidate (and now President) Donald Trump. That was obviously an attempt to use threats against American media in hopes of exerting foreign influence on American domestic politics.

It seems largely symbolic. In the context of the European outcry, I don't know how banning these individuals could possibly undermine the power of the Digital Services Act in Europe, or stop these people -- via their proxies -- from still asserting their propaganda influence in the US.

If Trump is making extended threats about incrementally derailing the DSA itself over time, then that's another matter. But Macron's statement below, as pertaining purely to this action -- and surpassing the personal, financial issue of Thierry Breton's assets being frozen -- is insane.

EU warns of possible action after US bars five Europeans accused of censorship: French President Emmanuel Macron said that the visa restrictions "amount to intimidation and coercion aimed at undermining European digital sovereignty".

[Yazata]

It seems largely symbolic.

I think that it was meant to be. I interpret yesterday's announcement as firing a shot across Europe's bow, so to speak. It doesn't do Europe or the UK any real harm, but it does send a message.

In the context of the European outcry, I don't know how banning these individuals could possibly undermine the power of the Digital Services Act in Europe

The application of the DSA inside the EU is basically up to the Europeans to decide for themselves, I guess. The US can't control that, all we can do is express our own opinions about what they should do. Just as Europeans are free to express their opinions about American politics.

The US objection is to the Europeans claiming extraterritorial jurisdiction for their DSA and attempting to apply it outside Europe, in order to exert content-control over American discussion of American domestic politics in violation of our own First Amendment free speech rights.

or stop these people -- via their proxies -- from still asserting their propaganda influence in the US.

That's where Secretary of State "we stand ready to expand the list" comes into play. And certainly, given that the European efforts to censor American political speech have no end of American allies (the Democratic party) who have tried to do the same thing, makes things a lot more difficult.

If Trump is making extended threats about incrementally derailing the DSA itself over time, then that's another matter.

Secretary Marco Rubio and Undersecretary Sarah Rogers are just telling Europe to stop messing with the internal affairs of the United States.

But Macron's statement below...is insane... EU warns of possible action after US bars five Europeans accused of censorship: French President Emmanuel Macron said that the visa restrictions "amount to intimidation and coercion aimed at undermining European digital sovereignty".

Macron is in serious political trouble at home. (How many Prime Ministers has France had in the last year?) And being anti-American (anti-Anglo-Saxon actually, they don't much like Britain either) is deeply ingrained in France's political culture. So Macron probably thinks that he can win points with his voters and shore up his position a little, with a public show of angry defiance.

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The Eurocrats seem to have interpreted things to mean that they have the power to dictate content on platforms in the US and worldwide, provided that they are accessible in Europe and widely used by Europeans. If Europeans can use platforms originating anywhere in the world, then the platforms (so the EU argues) will all fall under the jurisdiction of European law.

And X, and some of the others, have refused to submit to European content regulation demands, particularly if those demands would apply to all users whether in Europe or not. So on December 5, 2025 the EU hit X with a 120 million euro fine, with threats that it will continue to grow into the billions if X doesn't cave. (Good luck getting X to pay the money, Europeans.)

So if Europe is really determined to carry though with their demands for worldwide content control, then their best option might be to simply follow the lead of countries like China, Iran and North Korea, and simply ban X and whoever else from the internet inside the EU. Copy the Chinese example and create a Great Firewall of Europe where the state dictates the ideas that the people are allowed to see (and to think about).

Of course that would probably be hugely unpopular with many millions of European voters, given that X is the most popular news, opinion and discussion medium in literally every European Union state. So expressing impotent defiance is probably the best course of action for people like Macron.