Under the shadow of the European Union’s Digital Services Act censorship regime, Europeans already face fines, raids, and arrests for their social media posts, but starting July 1, the Code of Conduct on Disinformation has the force of law. The once-voluntary “code,” a 56-page document that spells out censorship strategies, is now an enforceable “benchmark” that the EU can use to measure tech companies’ censorship regimes.
The Code requires large online platforms to meet “tougher transparency and auditing obligations aimed at stamping out disinformation,” according to Tech Policy Press. Previously, the Code operated as a “self-regulatory framework” for tech companies before the EU “endorsed” its “integration” into the DSA.
The DSA “regulates online intermediaries and platforms” to police so-called “disinformation.” Under the law, which went into full effect last year, tech companies like Google, Meta, Microsoft, and X are required to undergo independent audits that “assess” their management of “disinformation risks,” Tech Policy Press reported. The Code commitments will act as “benchmarks” for these assessments, where applicable.
In April of 2023, the EU designated 19 large tech companies required to comply with the DSA. All of these companies serve more than 45 million monthly users in the EU, and 14 of them are U.S.-based, Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Jeremy Tedesco told The Federalist. As of June, the Commission is still “supervising” these tech companies under the DSA.
“The EU is trying to impose its draconian, very restrictive free speech regime on the world,” Tedesco said in an interview.
Full adherence to the Code is now a “marker of DSA compliance” for companies, according to Tech Policy Press. “While signing on [to the Code] remains optional,” “failing to adhere to its commitments may now trigger investigations or fines.”
Although tech companies can withdraw from Code of Conduct, “the legal obligations under the DSA remain,” including “preemptive removal of ‘illegal’ content” and audits, Tedesco said. He noted that “EU law defines” illegal content as “hate speech and disinformation.”
“[C]ompanies that withdraw from the Code face serious backlash,” he added, citing X as an example. The social media company — then Twitter — withdrew from the voluntary version of the Code and was “strongly condemned” by EU institutions, Tedesco said. The EU later launched an investigation into the platform over DSA compliance. X now faces fines from the EU that could exceed $1 billion, according to The New York Times.
Although some companies reportedly retreated from their commitments to the Code before it was integrated into the DSA, signatories as of February included Google, Meta, and TikTok, as well as censorship tools NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index.
The Federalist contacted the European Commission, asking what changes the Code brings to online platforms and how the Commission upholds free speech while contracting with companies to moderate content. An EU Commission representative said the Code is a “voluntary instrument by online platforms committing to combat disinformation” that is “not geared towards content removal,” although it does allow companies to commit to demonetizing “disinformation” and “removing fake accounts.” The representative also claimed the DSA “safeguard[s] freedom of expression,” adding that users can appeal account restrictions or suspensions.
Because of its vague, arbitrary definition of “disinformation,” Tedesco said the DSA enforces extreme censorship. Before the Code was integrated into the DSA, more than 11,000 Twitter accounts were suspended due to Covid-related “disinformation” content.
The removal of content or accounts represents only a portion of the total censorship the DSA permits, Tedesco said. He estimated nearly 90 percent of online censorship is “preemptive, proactive mitigation measures.” He said that companies will program their algorithms to limit content on platforms before it is even posted. This programming for unspecified content of “disinformation” is untraceable and “behind closed doors,” Tedesco said.
For failure to appropriately monitor content under the DSA, a company could face fines up to 6 percent of its global revenue — “billions and billions of dollars” — and to avoid this penalty, companies will likely enforce the most restrictive policies, Tedesco said.
Noting the concerns regarding worldwide censorship, The Federalist asked the European Commission how it limits DSA supervision of worldwide companies to the EU. The representative responded, saying the DSA “applies only within the EU”— without clarifying how — and claimed the law is “not about censorship and contains important protections against censorship.” Because global companies fall under the DSA, however, specifying content moderation to only the EU — comprised of 27 states — would be nearly impossible, Tedesco said.
Other Online Censorship
In May, five Republican congressmen sent a letter to the EU Commissioner Michael McGrath arguing that “the DSA may set de facto global censorship standards and thus restrict Americans’ online speech.”
The Federalist has reported extensively on how taxpayer-funded tech companies like the GDI and NewsGuard work to censor conservative voices. For example, the GDI, a United Kingdom-based platform funded with American taxpayer dollars, “produced a list of the top 10 ‘riskiest online news outlets’”— each one on the political right — to “put them out of business.” The Federalist was one of the outlets on that list. In the U.S., the Department of Defense granted “nearly $750,000 to NewsGuard for the further development and testing of the Misinformation Fingerprints tool.” NewsGuard aids “both government and non-governmental actors to regulate — and ban — content.”
The Trump administration has committed to fighting the censorship-industrial complex to uphold free speech.
“If citizens need the government to step in and tell them what is disinformation and what isn’t, then power doesn’t rest with the people at all — it rests instead with the people who write the propaganda telling the public what to believe,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote in The Federalist.
The Code went into effect just months after Vice President Vance critiqued the United Kingdom for its “censorship and prosecution of political opponents.”
The EU claims the negotiations for the recently delayed Aug. 1 trade talks between the EU and the U.S. will not include modifications to the DSA, according to Tech Policy Press.