Real Clear Investigations on Foreign Censorship and Its Effects Here at Home

​An important analysis from Real Clear Investigations probes the extent to which censorship abroad threatens the First Amendment here at home. 
 
Writer Ben Weingarten asks whether foreign demands that domestic media companies operating abroad comply with those nations’ often far more censorial legal requirements will lead in turn to more censorship here at home. The preponderance of the evidence suggests bad news for fans of the First Amendment.
 
Weingarten points specifically to the European Union’s Digital Services Act, which imposes content moderation standards that far exceed what would be considered constitutional in the United States. For example, companies doing business in the EU must combat “illegal content online,” which includes the disfavored rhetoric like “illegal hate speech.”
 
Writes Weingarten:
 
“Platforms also must take ‘risk-based action,’ including undergoing independent audits to combat ‘disinformation or election manipulation’ – with the expectation those measures should be taken in consultation with ‘independent experts and civil society organisations.’ The Commission says these measures are aimed at mitigating ‘systemic issues such as … hoaxes and manipulation during pandemics, harms to vulnerable groups and other emerging societal harms’ driven by ‘harmful’ but not illegal content.”
 
What’s more, investigations pursuant to the DSA can result in fines of up to 6% of annual global revenue, a potential outcome likely to give companies like X and Facebook pause when considering whether to comply with the invasive oversight of European bureaucrats and NGOs serving as arbiters of the appropriate.
 
Then there’s the question of whether social media companies that agree to the EU’s demands are likely to run parallel services – for example, a DSA compliant version of X and another that is consistent with the requirements of the First Amendment.
 
Elon Musk seemed willing to abandon Brazil after that country banned X for failing to de-platform the account of former president Jair Bolsonaro. (Though Musk’s company is now very much back in business there.) But the EU is a much bigger market with a lot more monetizable users.
 
As Weingarten documents, the punishment of media companies abroad for speech that is well within the bounds of the First Amendment is a growing trend – not just in the EU but also in countries like the UK and Australia. And Weingarten reserves no small amount of criticism for the Biden Administration’s silence – and even capitulation – in the face of such foreign censorship.
 
Bills like the No Censors on our Shores Act, which could “punish foreign individuals and entities that promote or engage in the censorship of American speech,” offer one potential solution to foreign censorship creep. So do articles like Weingarten’s, which provide a much-needed diagnosis of our speech-related ailings and failings.