Posted on 04/18/2025 10:54:27 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
First Trump officials were trying to get Europe to accept chlorinated chickens and hormone-infused beef from the United States. Now, it seems they are trying to foist the toxicity of our social media platforms and a laissez-faire approach to harmful content onto Europe, as well.
Evidence suggests the Trump administration is targeting content moderation laws in the United Kingdom designed to curb hate speech and misinformation as a part of trade negotiations.
Last week, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer acknowledged to Parliament that “a review of online safety rules [is] on the table in trade talks with the United States,” Politico EU reported. When asked about whether top tech firms might be powerful enough to be treated as independent nations, Starmer hedged and pivoted to points about “the appropriate way to tax digital services” and “how technology impacts with free speech.” (Below is a video of the exchange posted by a member of Parliament, Chi Onwurah.)
Starmer’s comments seem to suggest that U.K. laws against hate speech and disinformation have become a factor in trade negotiations with Trump, who is destabilizing the U.S. economy with a haphazard tariff war that has targeted American allies, such as the U.K.
Starmer’s comments also followed a recent report by The New York Times that said European Union officials have weighed enforcement of content moderation laws against Elon Musk and his social platform, X, against the risks of angering the Trump administration amid ongoing trade negotiations.
Trump’s administration has been known to rely on hateful rhetoric and disinformation, so its open criticism of European officials’ punishment of such speech in their countries hasn’t come as a surprise. Vice President JD Vance, for example, recently framed European laws targeting misinformation as an attack on free speech at a conference in Munich.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Yes Mr. Kerr, European censorship and attacks on free speech are definitely in the table, but it isn’t going to turn out how you think it is. If you can’t protect basic human rights to free speech, you can’t be our friend, let alone have an equally beneficial trade relationship with the USA.
Indeed!
*
Freeing Tommy Robinson should be part of the trade deal.
Bring him to America if he wants to come here for awhile to re-group.
Ahhhh... NO!
Ahhhh... NO!
I’ll second that! It would be a nice FU Starmer and this libtard “journalist”.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.