Europe’s Digital Censorship Regime Confronted in Washington

Europe’s Digital Censorship Regime Confronted in Washington

Washington, D.C., September 3, 2025 — The House Judiciary Committee convened a hearing titled Europe’s Threat to American Speech and Innovation, bringing together legal advocates, technologists, and political figures to examine how the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA), together with the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act (OSA), are shaping speech and innovation far beyond their own borders.

Among the witnesses, three contrasting perspectives stood out: Lorcán Price, an Irish barrister representing ADF International (Alliance Defending Freedom International, a faith-based legal advocacy group); Nigel Farage, Reform UK Member of Parliament for Clacton; and Professor David Kaye, law professor at UC Irvine and former UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression.

Lorcán Price: The Brussels Effect and the New Censorship Apparatus
Price described the DSA as an “anti-speech law” designed not only to police content in Europe but to export European censorship standards globally through the so-called Brussels effect¹. This refers to the EU’s practice of setting stringent regulatory standards that, due to the size of its market, effectively become global rules, impacting businesses and users worldwide.

He warned that this strategy, when applied to speech, risks creating a censorship framework that reaches far beyond Europe. “Trusted flaggers,” codes of conduct on so-called hate speech, and requirements to mitigate “systemic risks” are written in bland, technocratic language but carry sweeping consequences². Price argued that these provisions build a “digital curtain where once there was an iron curtain”, forcing global compliance with a European regulatory vision.

Foremost among the resulting abuses is the case of Dr. Päivi Räsänen, a Finnish parliamentarian and former Minister of the Interior, who has endured five years of criminal prosecution for publicly defending Christian teaching on marriage and sexuality. Her “crime” was to share a 2019 social media post quoting Romans 1:24–27, in which St. Paul condemns homosexual acts. For this, Räsänen was charged with “ethnic agitation,” a hate-speech offence under Finnish law.

In court, prosecutors went so far as to argue that the very act of quoting the Bible could be considered criminal if it was judged offensive. They pressed her to retract her words and to promise that she would not cite such passages again. Räsänen refused, declaring that she would rather obey God’s Word than men. Her defiance recalls the Apostles before the Sanhedrin: “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). In so doing, she joined the long tradition of martyrs and confessors who bore witness to truth even when threatened with punishment. Though acquitted twice — first by the Helsinki District Court and again by the Court of Appeal — prosecutors appealed each time, leaving her under a continuing shadow of criminal conviction simply for citing Scripture³.

Price also cited Rose Doherty, a Scottish grandmother arrested for offering conversations on faith⁴; Adam Smith-Connor, an army veteran prosecuted for praying silently outside an abortion facility in Bournemouth⁵; and Graeme Linehan, the Irish comedy writer detained by armed police at Heathrow Airport for gender-related tweets made months earlier while in the United States⁶.

Nigel Farage: Britain’s Descent into Authoritarianism
Farage reinforced Price’s warnings with first-hand examples from the United Kingdom. He pointed to the case of Lucy Connelly, sentenced to 31 months’ imprisonment after posting inflammatory comments online in the aftermath of the murder of three young girls. While Farage characterised the sentence as disproportionate and emblematic of speech-criminalisation, committee Democrats entered into the record a Reuters report clarifying that Connelly had pled guilty to inciting racial hatred rather than being jailed merely for “edgy words”⁷.

Farage also highlighted the arrest of Graeme Linehan, a comedy writer best known for co-creating Father Ted. Crucially, Linehan is an Irish citizen, not a British one. He was arrested at Heathrow Airport by armed police for tweets made months earlier while in the United States. Farage stressed that this fact — a non-British citizen prosecuted under UK law for speech expressed abroad — demonstrates the chilling reach of the legislation. “This could happen to any American man or woman that goes to Heathrow,” he warned.

He argued that the Online Safety Act (OSA), which came into force in 2023 under the Conservative government, has turned Britain into “a genuinely worrying, concerning, and shocking situation” where free expression is endangered even for foreign citizens. Critics have noted that the OSA gives Ofcom (the UK’s communications regulator) wide-ranging powers to demand content removal and to fine companies that fail to comply⁸.

Though acknowledging parents’ legitimate concern about children’s exposure to harmful content, Farage argued that Parliament’s chosen legislative approach has become “the sledgehammer that misses the nut.” He urged U.S. lawmakers not to replicate Britain’s mistakes: “At what point did we become North Korea?”

Professor David Kaye: Democratic Oversight and Platform Accountability
In contrast, Professor David Kaye cautioned the committee against overstating the authoritarian danger posed by EU and UK laws. Kaye is a clinical professor of law at the University of California, Irvine, and from 2014 to 2020 he served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression⁹. In that role, he monitored abuses of free speech worldwide and regularly reported to the UN Human Rights Council and General Assembly.

Kaye reminded lawmakers that the international standard for free expression is set out in Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which guarantees that “everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference” and to “seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds”¹⁰. The United States ratified this treaty in 1992, and it was directly inspired by First Amendment principles.

Kaye argued that while the DSA and OSA are imperfect, they do not amount to authoritarian censorship. “Neither established censorship regimes,” he told the committee, “both are subject to democratic judicial oversight.” He contrasted these laws with the more egregious violations he documented in Russia, China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, where governments directly criminalise dissent, silence journalists, or tightly control media outlets.

Yet this reliance on judicial appeal is itself symptomatic of bad law. When legislation is so vague or intrusive that citizens must go to court simply to discover whether their speech is protected, the law ceases to serve the common good. It imposes heavy material costs on defendants forced to secure legal counsel and endure penalties before vindication, and grave psychological costs on individuals dragged through investigations and trials. The process itself becomes the punishment. Law should offer clarity and stability, not uncertainty and fear.

History shows the danger. Under the Roman emperors, Christians were often compelled to appeal to local governors or imperial courts, enduring imprisonment and torture simply for refusing to sacrifice to idols. In 17th-century England, Catholics prosecuted under recusancy laws were technically “free” to defend themselves in court, yet the process bankrupted families and branded them as traitors. More recently, modern European cases such as Räsänen’s demonstrate how even acquittals come only after devastating personal and financial costs.

Catholic teaching warns against this positivist error, where legitimacy is thought to arise from mere procedure. Pope Leo XIII reminded the faithful that “if the laws of the State are at variance with the divine law… to resist becomes a duty, to obey, a crime”¹¹. St. Augustine taught that “Lex iniusta non est lex” — an unjust law is no law at all¹². John Paul II warned in Veritatis Splendor that freedom detached from truth becomes “a factor leading to the destruction of others”¹³. Benedict XVI echoed that democracy without truth becomes tyranny by consensus: “Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way”¹⁴.

Thus, Kaye’s appeal to judicial oversight may reveal not the health of democratic systems, but their decline: when law ceases to be anchored in truth and natural law, it drifts into endless litigation and arbitrary enforcement.

Partisan Reactions in Committee
Committee members’ responses reflected the stark political divide. Republican members embraced Price and Farage’s warnings, portraying EU and UK regulations as threats to the American First Amendment. Democrats, however, sought to downplay European risks, portraying Farage as a fringe figure and redirecting focus to alleged censorship under Donald Trump at home.

Ranking Member Jamie Raskin described Farage as a “far-right Putin-admirer” and accused Republicans of scapegoating allies while ignoring repression in Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia. He disputed Farage’s framing of Connelly’s case by introducing the Reuters report into the record.

This clash underscored the central fault line: whether the danger lies in European regulation shaping global norms, or in American politics itself.

Pastoral Reflection
The testimonies of Price, Farage, and Kaye reveal the tension at the heart of our times: between those who fear the rise of technocratic censorship and those who fear the abuse of unregulated power. Both concerns are real. Yet the Christian cannot lose sight of the first principle: truth is not secured by bureaucratic oversight, nor is it served by the silence of intimidation.

Christ Himself declared, “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (John 8:32). When law becomes a tool to define what may or may not be said, it is truth that suffers, and with it freedom. Positive law may dress itself in democratic language, but when it contradicts natural law it ceases to be just.

In this light, the witness of Päivi Räsänen is a prophetic reminder. By refusing to renounce Scripture under threat of prosecution, she stood in the line of the Apostles and the martyrs, choosing fidelity to Christ over compliance with unjust law. Her example shows that Christian liberty is not the gift of governments but the fruit of obedience to the Word of God.

From Augustine to Leo XIII, from John Paul II to Benedict XVI, the tradition is clear: freedom without truth becomes licence, and law without reference to God’s law becomes tyranny. Whether in Brussels, London, or Washington, Christians must defend the liberty to speak the Word of God without fear. That way remains narrow, but it leads to freedom, and we must walk in it. 🔝

1. Anu Bradford, The Brussels Effect: How the European Union Rules the World (Oxford University Press, 2020), pp. 3–5.
2. Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 of the European Parliament and of the Council on a Single Market for Digital Services (Digital Services Act), Articles 14–35.
3. Helsinki District Court, Case R 20/2022 (Acquittal of Päivi Räsänen, March 2022); Helsinki Court of Appeal, Case R 23/2023 (Acquittal, November 2023). Appeal pending before the Supreme Court of Finland, 2025.
4. Glasgow Sheriff Court, Police Scotland v. Rose Doherty (2022).
5. Crown Prosecution Service v. Adam Smith-Connor (Bournemouth Magistrates’ Court, 2023).
6. Reported in UK press: “Father Ted writer Graham Linehan arrested at Heathrow Airport,” The Times (September 2, 2025).
7. Reuters, “Fact Check: UK woman jailed for inciting racial hatred, not posting hurtful words,” October 29, 2024.
8. Online Safety Act 2023 (UK), c. 42, esp. Parts 3–5 (duties on user-to-user services, search services, and Ofcom enforcement powers).
9. United Nations Human Rights Council, “Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, David Kaye” (A/HRC/44/49, 2020).
10. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 23 March 1976; ratified by the United States 8 June 1992, Article 19.
11. Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei (1885), §10.
12. St. Augustine, De libero arbitrio, I.5.
13. Pope John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor (1993), §84.
14. Pope Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate (2009), §3.