President Trump and Europe are clashing for rates, the war in Ukraine and the very purpose of the existence of the European Union. But they are also divided into freedom of speech, with potentially large implications for the way the digital world is regulated.
The EU has investigated the US companies pursuant to the Digital Services Act, a new law intended to prevent the spread of illegal content and online disinformation. In the first main case towards a conclusion, the regulators as soon as this summer impose significant penalties, including a fine and the requests for product changes – on the social media platform of Elon Musk, X, stating that the law has been violated.
But the administration of Mr. Trump sees the law as a strike against his version of freedom of speech: one that cancels his allies to say what they want online but limits the types of expression with which he does not agree in the real world, like protests in universities.
The president claimed that Europe is at risk of “losing their wonderful right to freedom of speech”. Vice -president JD Vance accused the European nations of “digital censorship” because of its laws, which supports limit the far -right voices on the Internet.
And both the administration officials and their Big Technology Companies allies have suggested that European rules for curbing disinformation and incendiary discourse on the internet are an attack on American companies – one against which the United States could fight.
From the inauguration of Mr. Trump, Europe and the United States have clashed repeatedly. In Ukraine, Trump has revoked the support and threatened not to defend European nations that do not invest enough in their safety. On trade, Mr. Trump has announced wide -ranging rates in Europe this week. And while European regulators begin to enforce their new rules on social media, freedom of speech is becoming another flash point.
“We are now in this impasse: the debate on freedom of speech is influencing every aspect of the transatlantic relationship,” said David Salvo, researcher of the German Marshall Fund who is an expert in construction of democracy. “It’s a disaster.”
Even before the 2024 elections, Vance supported in a podcast that America could consider the League of NATO support for “respect” for American values and freedom of speech. In February, Vance spoke to the Munich conference and warned that “freedom of speech, I’m afraid is in retreat”.
These comments also come when the American administration quarreled with universities on speeches in their campus, arrested pro-Palestinian activists, journalists ousted from the print pool of the White House, canceled the holidays related to identity at the federal institutions and set up policies that led to prohibited books in some schools that have enlarged the Watchogs of freedom of speech.
And in Europe, officials have firmly objected to the criticisms of their laws, claiming that they help to protect freedom of speech, for example ensuring that some ideas are not secretly promoted by the platforms even if others are suppressed.
“We are not a Ministry of Truth,” said Thomas Regnier, spokesman for the executive branch of the European Union, the European Commission, referring to the dystopian force responsible for state propaganda in “1984.” by George Orwell
However, some care that the latest European policies on digital services could be attacked. In February, the White House published a reminder that the laws on EU technology were examined as unjustly aimed at American companies.
“Of course, our feeling is that the rates will use us to go back to the backtrack on technological regulation,” said Anna Cavazzini, German representative of the green party who was part of a trip to Washington for European legislators to meet their American counterparts on the issues of digital policy and speech.
The tension dates back to decades ago. Europe has long preferred more guardrail for the speech, while America gives priority to personal rights on almost everything except immediate public security. Germany has put out a certain speech relating to Nazism, while other countries limit some forms of hatred speech towards religious groups. In Denmark, it is illegal to burn the Koran.
But while those shaded differences have existed for some time, Internet and social media have now made the problem a geopolitical pressure point. And this was clearly exacerbated by the new administration.
The Digital Services Act does not allow specific content, but requires companies to have guarantees to remove illegal content based on national or international laws and focuses on the fact that the decisions of moderation of content are taken transparently.
“This is a question about how to make sure that your services are safe to use and respecting the law of the land where you do your business,” said Margrethe Vestager, former executive vice -president of the European Commission by Denmark that supervised the antitrust and digital policy from 2014 to 2024.
Christel Schaldemose, who led the law through negotiations for the European Parliament, said that the law protects freedom of speech. He added: “You don’t have the right to be amplified”.
The case against X will be the first important test of the law. In the first part of the investigation that the regulators are finalizing now, the authorities concluded that X has violated the law due to his lack of supervision of his verified account system, his weak advertising transparency and his inability to provide data to external researchers.
In another part of the case, the EU authorities are investigating whether the X-off approach of X to monitor the contents generated by users has made it an illegal center of hatred, disinformation and other material that could reduce democracy.
This week, X said that EU actions were equivalent to “an unprecedented act of political censorship and an attack on freedom of speech”.
EU officials had to evaluate the geopolitical branches of the targeting of a company owned by one of Trump’s closest consultants.
“The boy who is a friend with the president are fine?” William Echikson, an elderly member who is not resident with the technological policy program at the Center for European Policy Analysis, said.
X is not the only large technological company in the conversation.
Meta, which is also under investigation by the EU, has demolished the use of facts checkers for Facebook, Instagram and thread in the United States shortly after the elections and could possibly pull them back all over the world. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of the company, defined the “censorship” of the EU and argued that the United States should defend its technological companies against the assault.
This is not the first time that America and Europe have several internet speech standards. European courts have confirmed the idea that data on a person can be deleted from the Internet, the so -called “right to be forgotten”. American legal and political experts saw him as a violation of freedom of speech.
But the alliance between Mr. Trump and the large technological companies – which have been encouraged by his elections – is expanding the gap.
European officials have promised that the Trump administration will not prevent them from standing and respecting their new legislation. The next few months will be a fundamental test of what they can stick to those plans.
When he visited Washington at the beginning of this year to talk to the legislators, said Mrs. Schaldemose, found little appetite for trying to understand the regulation that helped to put in existence.
“He does not adapt to the agenda of the administration: he does not help them understand,” he said. “We are not targeting them, but it is perceived like this.”