by Matt Taibbi at Racket News
The European Commission holds a seminar on implementation of its Digital Services Act, offering a disturbing window into a tightening speech landscape
While the United States continues to deal with its own domestic speech controversies, including around a Trump administration order sanctioning anyone who’s “materially assisted” the International Criminal Court (ICC), the European Commission is trying to use its own draconian speech laws to impact countries beyond its borders, including the U.S., according to an alarming new House Judiciary Committee report.
The Committee chaired by Ohio’s Jim Jordan began investigating Europe’s primary speech-control law, the Digital Services Act, after a bizarre incident last August. Europe’s Commissioner for Internal Markets, Thierry Breton, sent a letter to X CEO Elon Musk threatening an “extremely vigilant” response for “any negative effect of illegal content on X in the EU,” ahead of a planned live interview of Donald Trump by Musk. Though the interview was to be held in Washington — speech between two Americans in America, distributed by an American company — Breton was upset it would be “accessible to users in the EU,” and “spillovers” of “illegal content” might ensue. Though Breton resigned shortly after in a clash with President Ursula von der Leyen, questions about how serious Europe might or might not be about asserting jurisdiction over American speech remained.
Nearly a year later, Jordan’s Committee has come back with unpleasant answers. On May 7th, European authorities held a “DSA MultiStakeholder Workshop” in Brussels, intended to help major platforms like Meta, X, and Google understand their obligations under the DSA. As Jordan notes, the seminar was closed to the public, unlike previous seminars about laws like the Digital Markets Act. Participants of the new event were specifically warned not to describe the seminar’s “exercise scenarios,” but Jordan’s committee got hold of key documents.
Europe already has a broad definition of “illegal content,”…
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