New Report Exposes European Commission Decade-Long Campaign to Censor American Speech

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the House Judiciary Committee released a interim staff report titled "The Foreign Censorship Threat, Part II: Europe's Decade-Long Campaign to Censor the Global Internet and How it Harms American Speech in the United States." Nonpublic Big Tech documents produced to the Committee under subpoena reveal that the European Commission successfully pressured major social media platforms to change their global content moderation rules, directly harming American online speech in the United States. 

In more than 100 closed-door meetings since at least 2020, the European Commission—the executive arm of the European Union—repeatedly pressured platforms to change their globally applicable content moderation rules to more aggressively censor content and directly infringe on Americans' online speech in the United States.

In response to this pressure campaign, major social media platforms censored true information and political speech about some of the most important policy debates in recent history—including the COVID-19 pandemic, mass migration, and transgender issues, claiming it was combating hate speech and disinformation. In December 2025, the Commission took its most aggressive censorship step to date, fining X nearly six percent of its worldwide revenue in obvious retaliation for its protection of free speech around the globe. The Commission's new legislative and regulatory proposals likewise indicate that it is only increasing its efforts to control online speech and regulate outside of the EU's borders.

Nonpublic documents produced to the Committee show that: 

• The European Commission has successfully pressured social media platforms to censor true information in the United States;
• The European Commission targets U.S. political content for censorship;
• The European Commission disproportionately targets conservative content and interferes in elections across Europe;
• The European Commission's "voluntary" and "consensus"-driven regulatory initiatives are neither voluntary nor consensus-driven.

The European Commission's ongoing initiatives indicate that it remains committed to censorship and seeks to export its censorship measures to other countries. The Committee will continue its investigation into foreign censorship laws, regulations, and judicial orders and counter this existential risk to a fundamental American right: the right to free expression.

Read the full interim staff report here.

Read the Appendix Sections I to II here.
 
Read the Appendix Sections III to IV here.
 
Read the Appendix Section V Part 1 here.
 
Read the Appendix Section V Part 2 here.
 
Read the Appendix Section VI to VIII here.

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