President Trump and Europe Tariff are colliding with great objectives of war in Ukraine and the existence of the European Union. But they are also divided on free speech-how the digital world is regulated with a possible far-reaching implication.
American companies are investigating under the European Union Digital service actA new law was to prevent illegal material and disintegration from spreading online. In the first large case near a conclusion, as soon as the regulators are expected to impose significant punishment in this summer – including a fine and demand for product change – Elon Musk’s social media platform, on X, was violated by the law.
But Mr. Trump’s administration sees the law as a strike against his version of the free speech: one who inspires his colleagues to say what they want online, but restrict the kind of expression that he does not agree in the real world, such as opposition in universities.
chairman Is argued That Europe is in danger of “losing its amazing rights of freedom of speaking”. Vice President JD Vance has accused European countries of “digital censorship” due to his laws, arguing that it restrictions far and wide voices on the Internet.
And both administration officials and their colleagues in Big Technology companies suggest that Europe’s rules to disintegrate and curb the speech on the Internet are an attack on American companies – a one that may fight against the United States.
Since the inauguration of Mr. Trump, Europe and the United States have repeatedly hit. On Ukraine, Mr. Trump has refunded support and threatened Not for rescue European nations that do not invest enough in their security. On trade, Mr. Trump announced a wide tariff on Europe this week. And as European regulators begin to apply their new social media rules, free speech is becoming another flashpoint.
David Salvo, a researcher at the German Marshall Fund, said, “Now we are on this deadlock: the free speech debate is impressing every aspect of the trans-eleventh relationship.” “It’s a mess.”
Even before the 2024 election, Mr. Vance argued in a podcast that the US could consider tying his support for NATO to “respect” for American values and free speech. In February, Mr. Vance spoke at the Security Conference in Munich and warned that “free speech, I am afraid, retreat.”
Such comments come even when the US administration has quarreled with universities on speech on its complexes, arrested pro-Palestinian workers, White House Press Pool journalists have been removed, identity-related holidays have been canceled in federal institutions and books have been banned in some schools-which are free speech. Champion,
And in Europe, the authorities strongly objected to the criticism of their laws, arguing that they help protect the free speech, for example by ensuring that some ideas are not secretly propagated by platforms, even suppressing others.
“We are not the Truth Ministry,” Thomas Render, a spokesman of the European Union Executive Branch, said, “European Commission, George Orwell’s” 1984 “referring to the diastopian force responsible for the state campaign.”
Nevertheless, some fret that Europe’s latest policies around digital services may come under attack. In February, White House Published a memorandum Warning that the European Union technical laws were being investigated to wrongly target American companies.
Anna Kavazini, a German representative of the Green Party, said, “Of course our feeling is that they will use tariffs to back down on technical regulation.”
The stress goes back for decades. Europe has preferred more railings for speech for a long time, while America prioritizes personal rights on almost everything but Immediate public Security. Germany has illegally declared some speeches related to Nazism, while other countries restrict some forms of indecent language towards religious groups. In Denmark, burning the Quran is illegal.
But while the differences of those nuances have been present for a long time, the Internet and social media have now made the issue a geopolitical pressure point. And this has been rapidly increased by the new administration.
The Digital Services Act does not reject specific materials, but this requires security measures to remove illegal content on the basis of national or international laws, and focus on whether the material decisions have been made in a transparent manner.
The Executive Deputy Chairman of the former European Commission of Denmark, who inspects the antitrust and digital policy from 2014 to 2024, said, “It is a question that your services are safe to use and respect the law of the land where you do your business,” the Executive Vice Chairman of the former Denmark’s former European Commission, who inspects Anthetstust and digital policy from 2014 to 2024.
Christel Shaldmos, who shepires the law through negotiations to the European Parliament, said the law protects the speech. He said, “You do not have the right to be amplified.”
The case against X will be the first major test of law. In the first part of the investigation that the regulators are now finalizing, the authorities concluded that the X is x Violation of the act Due to the lack of monitoring of its verified account system, its weak advertising transparency and its failure to provide data to external researchers.
In another part of the case, European Union officials are investigating whether the X-off approach of X for policing user-borne materials has made it a center of illegal hatred speech, disintegration and other materials that can reduce democracy.
This week, x Said The European Union works “an attack on an unprecedented work of political censorship and an attack on free speech”.
European Union officials have to weigh the geopolitical influence of targeting a company owned by one of the closest advisors to Mr. Trump.
“Are they going to fix the man who is a friend-friend with the President?” William Ichikson said, “a non -senior partner with a technical policy program at the European Policy Analysis Center.
X is not the only major technology company in conversation.
Meta, which is also under the European Union’s investigation, has ended its use of fact checkers for Facebook, Instagram and Threads in the United States soon after the election, and may eventually pull them back worldwide. Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s CEO, has called The European Union rules “censorship” and argue that the United States should defend against protecting its technology companies.
This is not the first time that there are different standards for speeches on the Internet in the US and Europe. European Court retain The idea that data about a person can be erased from the Internet, the so -called “right to forget.” American legal experts and policy makers have seen that as a violation on free speech.
But the alliance between Mr. Trump and Big Technology companies – which have been affected by their election – are widening the difference.
European officials have vowed that the Trump administration will not stop them from standing with their values and implementing their new law. There will be an important test in the next few months how much they can stick to those plans.
When she visited Washington earlier this year to talk to MPs, Ms. Shaldmos said, “She found very little hunger to try to understand regulation, which she helped to bring into existence.
“It does not fit the agenda of administration: it does not help them understand,” he said. “We are not targeting them, but it is considered like this.”
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