Heat, Light, and Explosions at House Hearing on European Censorship of Americans

​Two events cast long shadows over the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing on Wednesday concerning the threat of European censorship to American speech and innovation.

One was the arrest this week of comedy writer Graham Linehan by five armed police officers at London’s Heathrow Airport. If anyone should doubt that the speech laws of the UK’s Online Safety Act, as well as the Digital Services Act of the European Union, were meant to be global, it had to be the arrest of this Irish citizen who had posted his offending tweets from Arizona.

The other shadow was cast by the looming midterm elections, with Democratic Members firing shots not at Europe but at the White House. Ranking Member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) launched a spirited attack on President Trump for his treatment of the First Amendment, including the use of regulatory authority to coerce a $16 million settlement from Paramount over a nuisance lawsuit about CBS’s editorial decisions.

Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) archly noted that while Rep. Raskin spoke, an aide stood behind him with a large poster full of headlines “from countless articles criticizing Donald Trump” – underscoring, that whatever one thinks of the controversies of the Trump administration, free speech in America remains robust.

The star of the show was Nigel Farage, MP and the leader of the UK Reform Party in Parliament. His remarks were well set up by Chairman Jordan who noted that when European Commission member Thierry Breton had fired off a letter in 2024 to Elon Musk complaining about X’s posting of an interview with Donald Trump, he threatened “full use of our toolbox.”

This toolbox under the EU’s Digital Services Act includes fines that can reach 10 to 20 percent of global revenues. Enough of those could amount to a potential death-penalty fine for even the largest social media companies.

Breton, Rep. Jordan said, “threatened an American running an American company regarding our most important election.”

Farage seamlessly picked up on Jordan’s characterization, telling the committee that he came bearing bad news from the “land of the Magna Carta and the Mother of Parliaments.” He had come to the United States, he said, “to be a klaxon” warning of the impending threats from the UK and EU to free speech in America.

In his formal testimony, Farage told the committee that the British regulator Ofcom “purports to have the authority to demand that American citizens who operate web platforms provide Ofcom with incriminating information about themselves and their services. Failure to respond to these demands, or any evasion in a response to these demands, is a criminal offense in the United Kingdom, punishable by arrest, fines, and a term of imprisonment of up to two years’ duration.”

This threat is far from merely rhetorical, as the arrest of Linehan underscores.

“Ofcom has already threatened four American companies with exactly these penalties,” Farage told the committee. “I repeat: regulatory bodies in the United Kingdom are actively threatening to imprison American citizens for exercising their protected Constitutional rights.”

There were some notes of bipartisanship. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), whose district includes Silicon Valley, said that she has long been “critical of the approach of the EU” on internet regulation.

Chairman Jordan defended American technology companies as an “engine of innovation in our global economy.” He noted that European regulation has not resulted in the rise of any competitive European champion.

“China wins as Europe hurts both itself and America,” Chairman Jordan said.
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Overall, the hearing was noisy, contentious, and spirited – in all, exactly what one would hope for in a discussion about free speech.

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