Lawfare Daily: Censorship, Civilizational Allies, and Codes of Practice

Lawfare Contributing Editor Renée DiResta sits down with Daphne Keller, Director of the Program on Platform Regulation at Stanford University's Cyber Policy Center; Dean Jackson, Contributing Editor at Tech Policy Press and fellow at American University's Center for Security, Innovation, and New Technology; and Joan Barata, Senior Legal Fellow at The Future of Free Speech Project at Vanderbilt University and fellow at Stanford’s Program on Platform Regulation, to make European tech regulation interesting. They discuss the European Union’s Disinformation Code of Practice and its transition, on July 1, from voluntary framework co-authored by Big Tech, to legally binding obligation under the Digital Services Act (DSA). This sounds like a niche bureaucratic change—but it's provided a news hook for the Trump Administration and its allies in far-right parties across Europe to allege once again that they are being suppressed by Big Tech, and that this transition portends the end of free speech on the internet.

Does it? No. But what do the Code and the DSA actually do? It's worth understanding the nuances of these regulations and how they may impact transparency, accountability, and free expression. The group discusses topics including Senator Marco Rubio’s recent visa ban policy aimed at “foreign censors,” Romania’s annulled election, and whether European regulation risks overreach or fails to go far enough.

For more on this topic:

• Hate Speech: Comparing the US and EU Approaches
• The European Commission's Approach to DSA Systemic Risk is Concerning for Freedom of Expression
• The Far Right’s War on Content Moderation Comes to Europe 
• Regulation or Repression? How the Right Hijacked the DSA Debate
• Lawful but Awful? Control over Legal Speech by Platforms, Governments, and Internet Users
• The Rise of the Compliant Speech Platform
• Three Questions Prompted by Rubio’s Threatened Visa Restrictions on ‘Foreign Nationals Who Censor Americans’
• Will the DSA Save Democracy? The Test of the Recent Presidential Election in Romania

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