The US administration is clearly not finished with the EU’s digital rules. On Tuesday 3 February, the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Jim Jordan, unveiled a vitriolic investigation into the Digital Services Act (DSA), which is accused of “forcing tech giants to censor what Americans say even in the United States, including truthful information”.
This is not the first time that the United States has come down hard on European legislation (see EUROPE 13591/6), but this Tuesday’s report adds another layer to the American crusade.
“The DSA is the culmination of a decade-long European effort to silence political opposition and suppress online narratives that criticise the political establishment”, the report states in black and white.
It attacks, in no particular order, the various ‘Codes’ published by the European Commission (Code on disinformation, Code of Practice on AI, Code of Conduct on online hate, etc.), the EU Internet Forum, the DSA and the fines imposed under the latter.
“The Commission sets the agenda, imposes consensus, and the platforms ‘don’t really have a choice’ as to whether or not they comply”, reads the Judiciary Committee’s X account.
Here again, any European regulatory initiative is described as censorship. The European Centre for Democratic Resilience and the European Network of Fact Checkers are designated as ‘hubs’ for this large-scale censorship.
“This is pure nonsense. Totally unfounded. And we all know that. Freedom of expression is a fundamental right in Europe. And the DSA protects this right against the digital giants”, replied a spokesperson for the European Commission.
European digital legislation has been the focus of tensions between the Trump administration and the Commission since the former returned to power.
Last year, companies like X were calling on the government to help them abolish the legislation altogether. Having failed to win its case, Washington is not giving up just yet. (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)