Republicans in the U.S. House Judiciary Committee have sparked controversy by accusing the European Commission of systematically distorting online speech. Internal documents from Brussels—published in Washington as The EU Censorship Files, Part II—appear to show that the Commission has spent more than a decade pressuring digital platforms to “censor more aggressively” lawful content. This includes demands to change their global moderation rules—particularly on issues such as COVID-19, mass migration, and gender identity.
According to the committee, this pressure extended into the political sphere, with platforms being pushed to restrict speech ahead of elections across Europe. The report states that the Commission is
disproportionately targeting conservative content and interfering in elections across Europe
while presenting its initiatives as voluntary despite them being “neither voluntary nor consensual.” The findings have fueled concerns that European Union regulation, especially under the Digital Services Act, is influencing online speech even beyond Europe’s borders.
Czech opposition leader Tomio Okamura also raised the alarm in an X post saying that the European Commission is “aggressively censoring content on the Internet and interfering in elections across Europe,” adding:
Let’s stand up against the dictates and totalitarianism from Brussels!
Okamura said the report confirms what critics have “been warning about for a very long time,” and stressed that “freedom of speech is inviolable.”
