David Inserra
Recently European leaders have been openly attacking the value of free expression in their words and policy prescriptions. While Europeans and Americans differ on our conceptions of free speech and how we ought to regulate speech platforms, these more recent criticisms and policy proposals reflect a significant widening in the gap between Europe and the American ideal. These developments serve as warnings to US policymakers that following Europe’s lead on online speech is fraught with censorial pitfalls.
A good example to start with is Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who called for social media executives to be criminally liable for online speech. He declared that there would be “no more hiding behind code. No more pretending that technology is neutral.” And he argued that online speech was an unacceptable “Wild West” that demanded such radical action to rein in hate speech, disinformation, and various forms of abusive speech. Sánchez’s reasoning is wrong for a number of reasons.
First, technology, especially speech technology, is neutral, contrary to Sánchez’s assertion. Giving millions of people a platform to speak means that many will use it for good, but some will use it for ill. That’s human nature, and it cannot be solved by attacking the technology, as elites have done countless times throughout history. Second, its almost laughable for an EU leader to call online speech the Wild West given the many national- and EU-level laws governing such speech. The European Union prides itself on its leadership in tech regulation. Yes, there are states with more stringent policing of online speech, but many of those are the autocracies that EU leaders claim to be defending their democracies from. Trying to jail leaders of companies because they won’t swiftly remove the “hate speech” or “disinformation” that Sánchez does not like, however, is a policy that would be at home in an autocracy.
For its part, the UK government has announced that it is formally considering a ban on virtual private networks (VPNs) to enforce its other speech regulations. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has also proposed granting government officials the power to unilaterally alter legislation to restrict children’s access to online services and to “minimiz[e] or mitigat[e] the risks of harm to individuals” caused by AI-generated content.
Attacks on VPNs are highly concerning for user privacy and security. And again, such attacks reflect democracies following the path of autocracies, as countries such as North Korea and Belarus ban VPNs, while China and Russia control them. This is concerning enough, but granting the government broad powers to make major and unilateral changes to legislation to crack down on speech will likely be abused. Handing political figures the power to single-handedly change laws to remove speech is almost guaranteed to censor socially and politically contested speech.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also attacked anonymous speech saying, “I want to see real names on the internet”; meanwhile, German police investigate a citizen who called Merz “Pinocchio” on Facebook. It seems almost farcical if it weren’t true. Merz dislikes anonymous speech because to him it somehow disqualifies an argument or makes speech suspect. But anonymous speech has been used around the world and throughout history to protect whistleblowers, journalists, activists, vulnerable populations, and those who are simply afraid for their identities to be made known. Perhaps they are afraid that leveling a fairly standard criticism—for example, calling the leader of a country a “Pinocchio”—might end with them facing a large fine or jail time.
And then French President Emmanuel Macron stated that “free speech is pure bullshit if nobody” understands the algorithms platforms are using. On one level, it is understandable that people want to know more about how the content in their social media feeds is selected. I think transparency and greater user choice over what appears in social media feeds would be helpful features for platforms to offer to their users. But at the same time, newspapers and televisions stations often do not provide much transparency into how they make their decisions. Would we suggest that freedom of the press is “bullshit” because editorial boards do not release the transcripts of their meetings discussing how they want to cover a story? Of course not, and it is still very much an exercise in freedom of expression. The same is true for social media companies and their content moderation and curation policies.
Each of these countries is also contemplating broad social media bans for teenagers in the name of child safety. These proposals have the same concerns that I raised with Australia’s social media ban for those under age 16: They weaken efforts to keep kids safe online, push children toward more dangerous areas of the internet, undermine privacy, chill speech, and directly harm kids access to information and ability to speak.
But there is a broader concern worth raising: As states around the world increasingly require age verification for all aspects of the internet, the promise of the internet as a place of freedom and anonymity, resistant to the whims and control of government, is under siege. Requiring everyone to identify themselves to access the internet resembles the way subjects or children might ask for permission before exercising any modicum of freedom. It is not safety—it is a digital road to serfdom.
Unfortunately, the US is not exactly a paragon of virtue for free expression either, with the Trump administration, Congress, and state legislatures continuing to get the First Amendment wrong. The Trump administration’s arresting of immigrants for their speech, jawboning companies into removing anti–Immigration and Customs Enforcement content online, and using the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission to attack the editorial decisions of technology and media companies all undermine free expression here at home. Congress is seriously considering a massively problematic online speech bill that would impose age verification for any American that wants to use any apps, require platforms to hold certain content policies, and create other restrictions on speech that are significant threats to Americans’ First Amendment liberties. The states are getting in on these attacks as well with some states passing similar age verification regimes, attacking VPN usage, or even vainly trying to declare that the First Amendment does not apply in issues of AI. While many of these actions are being (or will be) rightly stopped by the courts, it is deeply concerning to see so many policymakers attacking free expression.
But just because a key aspect of American exceptionalism is under fire at home does not make Europeans any more right in their increasingly open attacks on online expression. While Americans frequently pride ourselves on our greater dedication to liberty, our policymakers are mistakenly pursuing speech-limiting policies that are often inspired by and follow in the footsteps of Europe and less-free countries around the world. And it is an important reminder for US policymakers that following the path of other censorial governments is simply not the American way. Our commitment to free expression has made America stronger, freer, and more resilient. Let’s keep it that way.