US Congress holds hearing on EU censorship: As it happened

The House Judiciary Committee wants Brussels to answer for what it claims is a crackdown on free speech

The US House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Wednesday on “Europe’s threat to American speech and innovation.” The panel is looking into what it calls a global censorship regime imposed by the EU under the guise of fighting “disinformation.”

The hearing took place place one day after the committee published a lengthy report detailing European Commission pressure on tech companies – first with ‘voluntary’ agreements and then with laws such as the Digital Services Act (DSA) – into demoting and removing legal but “borderline” speech. Content that went against Brussels’ position on Covid-19 and the Ukraine conflict was targeted, as was “anti-migrant,” “populist,” and “anti-elite” messaging.

By forcing platforms to censor this content for all users, the EU directly restricted the free speech rights of Americans, Republicans on the committee argue. The committee has also singled out the UK’s Online Safety Act as unfairly impacting Americans.

Witnesses at the hearing included Irish comedy writer Graham Linehan, who was arrested by British police last year for anti-transgender posts on X, and Irish lawyer Lorcan Price of Alliance Defending Freedom International, a Christian legal advocacy group.

Democrats on the committee, led by Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, brought Deepinder Singh Mayell of the American Civil Liberties Union as their witness, and focused their questioning almost entirely on the activities of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minnesota.

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