The United States is planning a new website that will allow Europeans and others to view content their governments have banned.

 

Street art in London. Reuters. 

The United States is planning a new website that will allow Europeans and others to view content their governments have banned. Reuters. The website will be hosted at freedom.gov and is seen as a direct shot across the bow to Europe's failures to protect free speech. The website was supposed to have been released already but has been delayed for unknown reasons. America's laws on free speech are very different than most of Europe, where there is no equivalent to the 1st amendment. Europe has been criticized by the Trump administration for censoring right wing speech, along with countries like Brazil, where similar restrictions are in place. Europe has also attacked and fined US based websites, like X/Twitter. 

My Comment:

There is an element of hypocrisy here. Though clearly better than the Biden administration or even the most lenient European government, the Trump administration has their own problems with free speech. I am not really talking about their banning of foreigners tat take anti-American stances, that's just common sense. 

But I have been extremely critical of some of the things that the GOP is doing when it comes to free speech, most notably the Take it Down act and various state age verification schemes. DeepFakes may not be politically popular but they can clearly be used for speech an any actual misuse of them is already covered under our harassment and libel/slander laws. And age verification is obviously horrible as it's the government putting a chilling effect on behavior they don't agree with. 

With that being said, things are clearly worse in Europe than they are here in the United States. Here you can generally say whatever you want as long as it's not a direct incitement to violence. And, we have seen with the anti-ICE nonsense coming from the left, sometimes even that is allowed. There are no laws against advocating for restricting immigration or saying scientifically true but politically unpopular things (like any discussion about race and IQ). You can still be punished by private actors for these stances, which is a major free speech concern, but the government mostly can't touch you, especially with the Democrats out of office. 

I do think that pushing back against Europe's tyranny on free speech is long overdue. I am of the view that the 1st amendment doesn't actually grant free speech rights, those rights are inherent to being human and any law that restricts that is null and void. America has our own problems with this, but the idea that people can be arrested just for being opposed to immigration from the Muslim world is just totally unacceptable. 

It also makes very little sense to be allied with people that don't respect our beliefs and priorities. How can we be defending Europe from tyranny when they are already tyrannical? It's a major reason I was never on Europe's side during the Ukraine War. Russia is certainly no free speech hub, but it's not really any worse than Europe at this point. I'd add that we should be criticizing Europe's gun laws just as much, but time will tell if that ever comes up. 

As for the impact of the website itself, I am guessing it is mostly going to be symbolic. The people that care to subvert Europe's speech restrictions are using things like the Tor browser and VPN's to bypass their speech laws anyways. They are able to see much of the same content Americans are by using these tools, and I encourage them to do so. It will be nice to have an archive of things that Europe is trying to delete, but the practical effects are probably not going to be that useful. 

However, this is a major message to Europe that we are sick of their nonsense. It's especially bad coming from lame duck leadership like we have in France and the UK. Given that Europe has launched their own shots across our bows, most notably trying to fine X for allowing free speech for the most part, it was long overdo. I do hope that this website is released soon.