The Alliance Defending Freedom International has warned that free speech in Europe is facing its gravest threat because the days of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact.
ADF executive director of Christian advocacy group, Paul Coleman, claims that since Britain’s vote to depart the European Union and the primary election of Donald Trump, the European political establishment has refused to look at its own assumptions and track record in government and has as an alternative concluded that it’s the European population that’s incorrect.
Since then, working under the guise of stopping “hate speech” or “misinformation”, the EU has taken steps to stop the spread of ideas it doesn’t like.
Coleman said that “misinformation” and “hate speech” were “deliberately vague and subjective terms [that] are rarely, if ever, defined within the laws that seeks to ban them”.
“And I’m convinced that the dearth of any meaningful definition is a design feature, not a bug,” he said.
He warned that the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) represents an actual threat to freedom of speech in Europe as it could require online platforms similar to Facebook and X to ban any content deemed “illegal” within the EU and in any member state.
Effectively it could mean that whichever country has probably the most stringent censorship laws within the bloc, could set the policy for the entire EU.
According to Coleman, draconian uses of censorship laws already in place would turn out to be more common.
“The case of Finnish parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen, certainly one of ADF International’s clients, gives a harrowing example of what censorship under the DSA could appear to be in practice,” he said.
“Six years ago, Päivi posted an image of a Bible verse and expressed her Christian views on sexuality on X. She was criminally prosecuted for alleged ‘hate speech’ and has been unanimously acquitted in two trials. But the state prosecutor has appealed the case again.
“And shockingly, her case—by which she faces trial for posting online—is now pending before Finland’s Supreme Court.”
Coleman called upon the people of Europe to lobby their elected representatives to lift concerns about censorship when the DSA is reviewed by the European Commission in November.
The Commission might be required to choose whether the DSA might be compatible with the assorted legal rights granted by the EU Charter and the European Convention on Human Rights.
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