00:00Is the EU censoring Americans and interfering in European elections?
00:08The EU has been carrying out a decade-long campaign to censor American free speech and infringe on their rights, according to US Republican lawmakers.
00:17A report by the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee claims that European Commission officials have regularly held closed-door meetings with social media platforms and aggressively pressured them to censor content.
00:30In the name of combating hate speech and disinformation, the Commission also allegedly interfered in national elections in France, the Netherlands, Romania and others, pushing social networks to stifle information to the detriment of conservative and populist parties.
00:46However, the European Commission has been quick to denounce the claims as pure nonsense.
00:51The Commission never, never interferes in national elections.
00:56This is the competence of our member states and this is the choice of our citizens at national level.
01:01The Commission said that freedom of expression is a fundamental right in Europe and that the Digital Services Act allows the EU to organise roundtables between member states and online platforms to make sure their algorithms are promoting content fairly during election time.
01:16The Cube spoke to experts who also poured cold water on the report, pointing to the fact it was authored by a Republican-led committee and therefore likely had political bias.
01:26They also said it was probable that the report intended to undermine the EU's DSA and its attempts to distance itself from US Big Tech.
01:34The DSA doesn't target lawful speech from any side of the political spectrum, instead regulating against terrorism, fraud and hate speech.
01:42And while the law can spill over as platforms choose global enforcement for efficiency, it only technically applies to services in the EU, so US citizens aren't bound by it.
01:53Music
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