New Information Control – R Street Institute

Autocrats have always attacked speech platforms and those who host them, but recent actions by government officials in the UK, France, and the European Union (EU) show that even democratic states are now threatening to use new, autocratic controls to punish free speech.

The United States sets the gold standard for free speech rights with the First Amendment, which partially protects citizens from government repression of speech—a right that has been appropriately extended to online speech. Furthermore, through Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, online platforms are also protected from liability for the speech and actions of individual users.

Unfortunately, there is a growing danger of indirect “chew,” which occurs when government officials threaten and coerce private companies to restrict speech in certain ways. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg recently acknowledged that Facebook has come under enormous pressure from the Biden administration to censor various types of communications related to the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns. “I believe the government pressure was misguided, and I regret that we were not more open about this,” Zuckerberg wrote in an Aug. 26 letter to Congress.

The decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case Murthy v. Missouri examined these latest government attempts at nitpicking. Frustratingly, the Court deferred the case to the U.S. Congress to address this growing problem. While some in Congress have proposed a number of potential solutions, none of these remedies have effectively stopped the nitpicking — and none have made it to the president’s desk.

While Americans have enjoyed these robust free speech protections, foreign nations that lack such a commitment to free speech pose a threat to individuals and platforms both at home and far beyond. As even these democratic nations take steps to surveil and repress speech, the United States must once again stand up for free speech and ensure that American citizens and platforms are protected from such tactics.

“Think before you post””

Britain was recently torn by riots, protests, and counter-demonstrations after a brutal stabbing in northern England left several people dead and dozens injured. The unrest stemmed from a widespread disinformation campaign about the killer’s identity that spiraled out of control as the government tried to restore order. “Think before you post,” the official U.K. government account X said in a terse Aug. 8 message. It followed an earlier post by the U.K. secretary of state for science, innovation, and technology: “The internet must not be a haven for those who seek to sow division in our communities.” British police have extended their threats abroad, warning that hateful speech online anywhere could result in criminal penalties. While the U.K. may not grant its own citizens full free speech rights, it is worrying that they will try to trample on the rights of American citizens from abroad.

The EU has simultaneously attempted to interfere in the U.S. election by dictating how American social media platforms can interact with candidates. On Aug. 12, Elon Musk conducted a live interview with former President Donald Trump on Musk’s platform X. Ahead of the interview, Thierry Breton, the European commissioner for internal market and services, published an open letter to Musk, whose social media platform has hosted extensive commentary on the events in England. Breton warned of the “risk of amplifying potentially harmful content” and threatened Musk with sanctions under the EU’s Digital Services Act (which some EU officials later backed down from).

More French repression

Last week, France arrested Russian citizen Pavel Durov, CEO of messaging app Telegram, charging him with a range of crimes for allegedly refusing to block illegal content on the private messaging platform. The government also appeared poised to punish Durov simply for offering the public an encrypted messaging platform for secure communication without undue government influence, accusing him of failing to “monitor integrity without prior declaration.”

As Durov himself has said, “I believe that every idea should be challenged… (o)n the contrary, we can quickly descend into totalitarianism.” While the impact of Durov’s case remains unclear, the precedent that CEOs of every major platform face arrest if they fail to comply with French moderation standards is alarming. This emerging trend of states attempting to control and police speech beyond their borders could undermine free speech and strain the “marketplace of ideas” that the internet offers.

This isn’t the first time the French have blatantly threatened tech company leaders. In 2001, Timothy Koogle, then Yahoo!’s CEO, was fined and threatened with arrest if he set foot in France for the “crime” of selling Nazi paraphernalia on Yahoo!’s auction site. The CEO was held liable, even though he likely had no personal knowledge of the third-party sale on his platform. They wanted to set a precedent that “anything published anywhere else in the world that potentially offends French ‘national interests’ can be subject to regulation and even criminal penalties.”

We stand firmly on guard of freedom of speech

In the past, governments have smashed printing presses or taken over broadcasting stations to control expression. At least that tyranny was limited in geographic scope (and easily visible). In the modern digital age, governments seek to control online content, code, and algorithms to impose autocratic controls on speech, even from distant continents.

While there are genuine concerns about disinformation and misinformation, widespread efforts to suppress speech under this guise only serve as a new form of autocratic information control. It is essential that the United States, as the world’s greatest champion of free speech, remains a safe haven for free speech online, especially as other countries seek to circumvent the First Amendment by restricting Americans’ speech at home and abroad.