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

[C C]

US State Department targets ‘decline of UK free speech’
https://brusselssignal.eu/2025/08/us-sta...ree-speech

INTRO: A newly released series of worldwide human rights reports by the US strongly criticised the United Kingdom over what it said was a troubling decline in free speech protections there.

Ukraine and Romania were also targeted. Most other European nations received comparatively milder assessments.

In its latest human rights report on the UK, released on August 12, the US State Department said the human rights situation “worsened” over 2024. It noted what it said were significant restrictions on freedom of expression, a priority issue for the current US administration.

The report highlighted the UK’s use of what is described as “restrictive laws” and “arbitrary or unlawful surveillance” to target disfavoured voices, particularly on political and religious grounds.

It pointed to recent legislative measures and policing practices that it said curtailed free speech, including the arrests of individuals for online posts deemed offensive under vague “hate speech” laws.

The report cited cases where UK authorities had penalised citizens for social media activity, raising concerns about censorship and the effect on public discourse.

While the UK section of the document acknowledged the country’s robust democratic framework, it criticised the current government’s approach to balancing security with civil liberties.

It noted allegations of excessive force by police in handling protests, with some cases referred to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

It also highlighted restrictions on political speech deemed “hateful” or “offensive” as well as limits on speech within specific arenas, even through prayer or silent protests.

Strict speech laws in the UK have also caused problems for journalists, according to the US State Department.. (MORE - details)
- - - - - - - - - - - -

The irony here is that the most recent wave of thought/speech control and cultural de-Westernization (via critical theory offshoots) originated with US literary intellectuals, for the large part. And was exported to the rest of the world. The US is now in the process of being freed from the "noble poseur" addiction, while the UK remains a staunch consumer of the imported product.

[stryder]

Protect Free Speech!
For the monthly price of 12.99 you too can protect free speech and get a little blue stamp next to your avatar.*

* Not currently available in your country


Is free speech truly free when people profiteer from it?

[confused2]

If there'd ever been an American using social media in an attempt to overthrow the government of the United States that would be treason - death sentence possible freedom of speech. There's a sort of meme thing where those that go along with it are called appointees and those that don't are called fired.  Unsurprisingly those in the appointee camp act like their job depends on supporting freedom of speech .. because it does.

[Syne]

If you're counting on an internet company to safeguard your freedom of speech, you're already f'd (not available in your country because your country says so).
In the US, freedom of speech is protected for everyone. It's only the internet companies that have censored, mostly conservatives, until Musk bough Twitter.
The freedom of speech does not shield you from the consequences of your speech.

[Yazata]

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio said yesterday:

"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.

Today, StateDept will take steps to bar leading figures of the global censorship-industrial complex from entering the United States. We stand ready and willing to expand this list if others do not reverse course."

United States Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers says:

https://x.com/UnderSecPD/status/2003567940462084439

"Today, the United States issued SANCTIONS reinforcing the "red line" I invoked on GBNEWS. Namely: extraterritorial censorship of Americans.

Today's sanctions target the censorship-NGO ecosystem.

These sanctions are visa-related. We aren't invoking severe Magnitsky-style financial measures, but our message is clear: if you spend your career fomenting censorship of American speech, you're unwelcome on American soil.

Our targets are foreign, but you'll notice that some collaborated with U.S. bureaucrats on Murthy-style speech suppression. Don't worry: we're pursuing transparency, truth, and reconciliation at the StateDept, too.

WE’VE SANCTIONED: Thierry Breton, a mastermind of the Digital Services Act. In August 2024, while serving as European Commissioner for Internal Markets and Digital Services, he published a letter using the DSA to threaten elonmusk ahead of his livestream interview with President Trump. Before the interview, Breton ominously reminded Musk of X’s legal obligations and ongoing “formal proceedings” for alleged noncompliance with “illegal content” and “disinformation” requirements under the DSA.

WE’VE SANCTIONED: Imran Ahmed, key collaborator with the Biden Administration’s effort to weaponize the government against U.S. citizens. Ahmed’s group, Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), created the infamous “disinformation dozen” report, which called for platforms to deplatform twelve American “anti-vaxxers”, including now-HHS Secretary SecKennedy. Leaked documents from CCDH show the organization listed “kill Musk’s Twitter” and “trigger EU and UK regulatory action” as priorities. The organization supports the UK’s Online Safety Act and EU’s Digital Services Act to expand censorship in Europe and around the world.

WE'VE SANCTIONED: Clare Melford. She leads Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a UK-based organization that monitors websites for “hate speech” and “disinformation”. If you question Canadian blood libels about residential schools, you're engaging in “hate speech” according to Melford and GDI. This NGO used StateDept taxpayer money to exhort censorship and blacklisting of American speech and press. They also joined the deleterious EU Code of Practice on Disinformation.

WE'VE SANCTIONED: Anna-Lena von Hodenberg, the leader and founder of HateAid, a German organization founded after the 2017 German federal elections to counter conservative groups. HateAid is an official “trusted flagger” (a censor) under the EU’s anti-speech Digital Services Act (DSA) and routinely demands access to propriety social media platform data to help it censor more. Hodenberg cited threat of “disinformation” from “right-wing extremists” online in upcoming U.S. and EU elections when circulating a petition for the DSA to become more strongly enforced to allow data access for “researchers".

WE’VE SANCTIONED: Josephine Ballon, co-leader of HateAid, who flags disfavored speech throughout Europe under the Digital Services Act. In addition to her running an official “trusted flagger” body under the DSA, she serves on Germany’s Advisory Council of the Digital Services Coordinator (DSC), which directly advises Germany’s DSC on the application and enforcement of the DSA. In February 2025, Ballon spoke before an American audience in a notable 60 Minutes interview, outlining her position on censorship succinctly: “Free speech needs boundaries.” In October 2024, she vowed to stop the “emotionalization of debates” by “regulating platforms".

None of those sanctioned is a current UK or EU official—however, we know that foreign government officials are actively targeting the United States. This week, the UK’s Liberal Democrats claimed President Trump's National Security Strategy amounts to “foreign interference” by a “hostile foreign state” because it correctly identifies mass migration and decaying national sovereignty as existential European security concerns.

As SecRubio has noted, today's list is illustrative not exhaustive. We stand "ready and willing to expand" it.

https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of...l-complex/

[confused2]

I'm left wondering why anyone would want to hide lies and bullshit behind a 'Freedom of Speech' banner.

[Image: 2017-_Donald_Trump_-_graph_-_false_or_mi...claims.png]

---

Fllod the zone..
The strategy came to public light after Bannon told Michael Lewis in 2018 that "The Democrats don't matter... The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_the_...he%20media.

[stryder]

It's all spin when you look at it properly. Trump says "blah" about Europe and Censorship, and then does this:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp39kngz008o

Coupled with limiting the press at the Whitehouse and penalising anyone that doesn't tow his line.

I'd say there is more Censorship coming from the US and it's misuse is at the same level as the Russians put up with in regards to Propaganda.

[C C]

[...] Fllod the zone..
The strategy came to public light after Bannon told Michael Lewis in 2018 that "The Democrats don't matter... The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_the_...he%20media.

(excerpt) During Trump's second term, Democrats began adopting Bannon's strategy. Democratic leader and representative Maxwell Frost called for the party to "flood the zone" by "Communicat[ing] often, all the time, about what’s going on with a very simple message that the reason [Republicans] want to cut Medicaid, the reason they want to cut food stamps, is because they want to give billionaires a tax cut". Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries called for the party to adopt a "more is more" strategy and be more active on social media. He also began holding more press conferences at the Capitol and appearances on podcasts.

But Democrats had actually been swamping the news and talk sphere with stuff like that (directed at the GOP) for decades. Long prior to cavemen like Bannon finally getting cognitively astute enough to discern the tactic and promote reciprocally utilizing it. Thereby consequently resulting in a "formal" label for it, as legacy media enjoyed the masochism of this revelation of how it had been played over the years, and respondingly tossed its own self-esteem further to the wind so to delight more in its function as a tool.

The expansion to social media, however, is an addition slash tweak that Democrats did learn from the GOP. Again, that reciprocal learning relationship between the two parties, that has finally achieved some kind of legit parity after all those generations of an overhead whooshing sound with respect to Republicans in terms of either grokking or deciding to belatedly adopt certain aspects of classic Dem strategy.

[Syne]

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?

[Yazata]

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 Americans are free to say what they please about Europe and about what they perceive as its disfunctional and self-destructive policies. (As we saw with the recent United States National Security Strategy that generated so much heat 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 intimidation against American media in hopes of exerting foreign influence on American domestic politics.