Visa ban for European critics of online harm is first shot in US free speech war | Technology
According to Maga politicians, European tech regulations are being hit hard in two areas: Silicon Valley’s economic interests and their perspective on freedom of expression.
Given the increasingly vocal backlash against the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) and the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA), there is a sense that litigation against five Europeans who undertake harmful content and the platforms hosting them is inevitable. Both pieces of legislation require social media companies to protect users or face the threat of huge fines. Indeed, Elon Musk’s X was fined €120 million (£105 million) this month for breaching the DSA.
These actions are prime examples of what US Republicans see as an anti-free speech culture on the other side of the Atlantic.
Ofcom, the UK communications regulator tasked with overseeing the OSA, is unimpressed by the visa bans announced on Christmas Eve, but there is a veiled threat in the air. One of those targeted by the movement is former European industrial commissioner Thierry Breton, one of the architects of the DSA. The message is clear: Beware of regulators.
Trump allies also targeted Imran Ahmed’s Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a US-UK organization that campaigns against online hate speech. Ahmed was one of those who received a visa ban on Wednesday. CCDH was the target of a lawsuit filed against Elon Musk in 2023, but the claim was dismissed last year by a judge who said the legal challenge, which focused on allegations that CCDH illegally accessed data about X, was actually “about punishing defendants for their speech.” Musk, a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist,” described CCDH in a post about X as “a truly evil organization that wants to destroy the first amendment under the guise of doing good.”
Britain’s OSA remains the subject of White House ire. US vice-president JD Vance said freedom of expression was “in retreat” in Britain. In July, Republican congressman Jim Jordan, who has criticized the law, led a delegation of US politicians to discuss it with the Labor government and Ofcom.
Ofcom knows it may be a target. In May, the State Department announced it would do so. Prevent entry to the USA “To the foreign nationals who censor Americans.” The watchdog said it was seeking “clarity” on planned visa restrictions.
The EU and the UK have only just begun to implement their actions and, as the visa ban on Breton shows, opposition is growing. In October, Ofcom fined online forum 4chan £20,000 for breaching the law by failing to respond to a request for a risk assessment. Emboldened by local opposition to the OSA, 4chan is suing Ofcom in the US, claiming that enforcement of the OSA violates Americans’ right to free speech.
While the UK government has said it will not back down on OSA, the X fine signals that the EU is determined to implement its own legislation. There is also an influential ecosystem of non-profits campaigning for online safety in Europe and the US. These visa bans are just the latest step in what will be a long-running fight under the Trump administration.
