Big Tech vs. Europe

Europe is currently making legislative moves to protect its consumers from harmful content and foster competitiveness and growth for smaller platforms, giving an excuse for President Donald Trump and the executive branch to respond with insults and threats. Just last month, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez of Spain announced that Spanish prosecutors have been ordered to investigate social media platforms X, Meta, and TikTok for allegedly spreading AI-generated child sexual abuse material. In January, French lawmakers took the first step to pass a bill that would ban social media use for users under 15 years-old. The European Commission has also feuded with Google, which has racked up almost 3 billion euros in fines for breaking EU antitrust rules. 

With Donald Trump now coming after the European Union’s Digital Service Act, a statute that enforces digital services accountability, content moderation, and platform transparency, the spotlight is now on the timer before another showdown occurs. President Emmanuel Macron of France shared a prediction with news outlets in early February that an attack by the United States over digital regulations was possibly on the horizon after an eventful year of trade tensions and accusations of democratic erosion.

Consequentially, the federal government’s staunch support for its Big Tech partners has whittled down trust with our alliances overseas. While this has greater implications for solving international issues, there needs to be a broader discussion and review of free speech policies and politics in the United States to understand why exactly Europe took the steps to check US tech powerhouses. 

Macron’s concerns aren’t unfounded. A month ago, David Sacks, the White House’s AI and crypto czar and longtime Silicon Valley investor, discussed the “censorship industrial complex” in an episode on his All-in podcast, arguing that free speech suppression has occurred globally under the justification of combating “mis-, dis-, and mal-information”. Sarah B. Rogers, a guest on the podcast and current Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, said that statutes such as the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act and DSA are “portals through which existing censorship laws get applied to the internet”. She cites that under the OSA, for example, the UK had the jurisdiction to decide that the social media platform 4chan, “is not allowed to exist unless it pays a bunch of money” for “not policing its speech in accord with UK laws”. 

In the United States, DSA and other proposed laws like it, such as Scotland’s hate-crime bill, are criticized as violations of free speech protections. However, there is limited understanding as to why federal intervention has been necessary—social media sites have failed to uphold their own community standards.

Using Rogers’ example, 4chan is a website where users post anonymously. On top of that, content moderation is largely lacking, which has led to real-world consequences such as two celebrity nude photo leaks, a harassment campaign targeting women in the gaming industry, and the use of /pol/, a message board on the site for political discussion. The space has been a magnet for extremist and fringe ideologies, sharing news from far-right and conspiratorial perspectives. For example, mass shooter Payton Gendron reportedly wrote a manifesto in which he cited frequent visits to 4chan in 2020, including /pol/, where he was introduced to the Great Replacement conspiracy theory. In these cases, because of the likes of Section 230 and narrow qualifications for harassment, fighting words, true threats, and incitement speech, 4chan and other social media platforms have been largely immune to liability for the freedoms of speech and expression that has been stretched thin by their users. 

In that same episode, Rogers implies that the 140 million euro fine against X from the European Commission was politically motivated. 

“Look, I can't speak for the UK regulators, but I can make inferences,” she said. “ X has a particular political valence. We saw Joe Biden after Elon acquired Twitter, saying, you know, we've got to find ways to go after him, and I think that sentiment might be shared.”

US Secretary of State Mark Rubio echoed the same sentiment in a tweet.

“The European Commission’s $140 million fine isn’t just an attack on @X, it’s an attack on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments”, he said. “The days of censoring Americans online are over.”

And, last August, in a post on Truth Social, President Trump said he would “stand up to countries that attack our incredible American Tech Companies”, accusing digital service legislation and digital market regulations of being designed to “harm or discriminate against American technology”. American political leaders are largely misunderstanding the point of DSA and OSA, which is to protect consumers. Such legislation merely holds companies accountable for the community standards they should’ve been upholding in the first place, or, as in 4chan’s case, establishes rules to abide by online. Instead of building a bridge of comprehension and collaboration between the United States and Europe, American leaders have resorted to scare tactics and deception to uphold the interests of tech companies within the current administration’s inner circle. Alliances have been cast out and countries alienated all for profits and favors.

Payton Gendron is not the only person who has taken advantage of his First Amendment rights and Big Tech’s lax online policies. Desmond Holly, who shot and injured two fellow students at Evergreen High School in Colorado, expressed Neo-Nazi viewpoints online and used TikTok to share his collected tactical gear adorned with extremist symbols. In 2021, a woman alleged on Instagram that a Korean spa in Los Angeles let a “man” expose himself to women and girls in the women’s section, which soon spread from social media to right-wing forums and news sites, quickly distorting the accuracy of the claim. The attention resulted in rallies in LA that led to clashes between anti-trans and trans-rights protestors. Multiple trans women told the Guardian they faced violence and harassment both in the streets and online for attending the counter-protests. 

Without government intervention, harmful content runs rampant under the radar of social media companies, bearing very real consequences for the people involved. Instead of attacking Europe or other foreign countries that have made similar moves, the United States needs to take the same measures to protect its citizens. And, for the sake of our own safety and our relationships, we need to ask ourselves, how far can we stress First Amendment protections? With such freedoms, we need to be responsible and hold ourselves accountable.