Transcript: US House Judiciary Hearing on ‘Europe’s Threat to American Speech and Innovation’

The United States House Judiciary Committee held a hearing Wednesday taking aim at European online safety laws, specifically the United Kingdom's Online Safety Act (OSA) and the European Union's Digital Services Act (DSA). The session sparked partisan feuding over what counts as “censorship,” whether imposed by foreign governments or domestic platforms, and who gets to decide where the line is drawn.

The hearing was the latest effort in a broader conservative campaign to discredit foreign tech regulations and cast them as a threat to free speech and American sovereignty. Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and his allies argue that laws like the DSA enable government-directed censorship under the guise of safety and create regulatory spillover that unfairly targets US-based platforms. US President Donald Trump denounced foreign tech legislations in a post on his Truth Social platform as “designed to harm, or discriminate against, American Technology,” and warned of potential retaliatory tariffs if they aren’t rolled back.

Ahead of the hearing, a group of European scholars wrote to Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to clarify what they see as persistent misconceptions about the DSA. In their letter, they argued that the law was adopted to advance the expression rights of users by giving them procedural rights and more control regarding the moderation of their content by online platforms. EU officials, including Commissioner Henna Virkkunen, have insisted that the DSA is “content-agnostic” and does not grant Brussels the authority to regulate lawful speech, the letter noted.

Here are some of the highlights:

• Jordan kicked off the hearing by calling out a letter former EU commissioner Thierry Breton sent to Elon Musk, suggesting his plan to host a livestream with Trump on X could run afoul of the DSA. Jordan cited this as evidence of a “spillover effect” of the EU rules into the US. “If that’s not Europe trying to influence what happens here, I don’t know what is,” said Jordan, who unsuccessfully sought Breton’s testimony for the hearing.
• Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the committee’s top Democrat, criticized Jordan for focusing on well-intentioned European regulations rather than censorship by foreign autocrats, or on Trump’s own attacks on free expression in the US. “This hearing’s just a drive-by hit against a strong democratic ally to benefit a Donald Trump sycophant and wannabe,” Raskin said, alluding to British far-right leader Nigel Farage, who testified.
• While Farage, a Trump ally vying to become the UK’s next prime minister, attacked the regulations in his country and in Europe as an “authoritarian” suppression of free expression, fellow witness and law professor David Kaye argued that the EU and UK regulations address platform power in ways the US Congress has largely failed to, through transparency, notice-and-appeal systems, and judicial oversight. “This [US] administration is directly attacking freedom of expression. Where is the oversight, given the assault not just on journalists, scientists, students, and whistleblowers, but on every American’s right to access information vital to our democracy and public health? That, I respectfully submit, is the real threat to American speech and innovation," Kaye concluded.

WITNESSES:

• The Rt. Hon. Nigel Farage, Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom (written testimony)
• Lorcán Price, Barrister, Legal Counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom International (written testimony)
• Morgan Reed, President, The App Association (written testimony)
• David Kaye, Clinical Professor of Law, University of California, Irvine School of Law, and former UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression (written testimony)

Below is a lightly edited transcript of the hearing. Refer to the official video when quoting.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Committee will come to order without objection. The chair is authorized to declare recess at any time. We welcome everyone to today's hearing on Europe's Threat to American Speech and Innovation. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Alabama to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

(Pledge of Allegiance):

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Chair is now recognized for an opening statement and then we will move to the ranking members opening statement. Then our witnesses will get five minutes. I want to just take an opportunity maybe before I even do an opening statement to welcome everyone back. Hope everyone had a good break. The ranking member and I along with a few other members, Mr. Kiley, Mr. Fitzgerald, Mr. Correa, I think Mr. Swalwell and Ms. Crockett all had a wonderful visit to and Mr. Cohen to Europe where we talked about this issue and we've learned, I think some valuable information and so we look forward to today's hearing and hearing from our witnesses. But first you got to listen to the chairman and the Ranking Member talk. On August 12th of last year, Thierry Breton wrote Elon Musk a letter. Thierry Breton's the commissioner in charge of enforcement of the Digital Services Act and the Digital Marketing Act in the very first sentence, the guy in charge of enforcing this legislation passed by the EU writes this.

'Dear Mr. Musk, I'm writing to you in the context of recent events in the United Kingdom and in relation to the plan broadcast on your platform, X, of a live conversation between a US presidential candidate and yourself.'

So think about it. The guy in Europe in charge of enforcing a European Union law, writes an American about an American company, about an American election, and he says the context for the letter, the reason for the letter are events that are happening in the UK, a non-European Union country that's not Europe, trying to influence what happens here. I don't know what is. He goes on throughout the letter and says this, 'measures need to be taken to combat disinformation.' He held this to Mr. Musk, 'we are concerned about any illegal content you may have.' And he ends his letter. He ends his letter by saying, 'my services and I,' very last sentence, 'my services and I will be extremely vigilant to any evidence that points to breaches of the Digital Services Act and will not hesitate to make full use of our toolbox.'

So he ends the letter with a threat. So before the interview even takes place, he's threatening an American, running an American company about an interview regarding the most important election. We have election of the President of the United States and again saying the reason for doing so are events that are happening in a non-European Union country. The UK comments about events happening in the UK concerned about this spillover effect. That is why we're having today's hearing. That's why we went to Europe last month or actually in July to study this issue. Now here's what's interesting, Mr. Breton, after he sends this letter, this committee sent him two letters and then he suddenly resigns. We ask him to come today, but he refused to come. We ask him to send written testimony. He refused to do that. We asked him to appear. He refused. He just wouldn't come.

I think it's important to remember what the House Judiciary Committee did last Congress, we investigated our government, the Biden administration, their attacks on free expression here in the United States. What Michael Shellenberger called journalists called the censorship industrial complex, Big government, Big Tech, Big Media, Big Academia, all working together to censor Americans. And we learned all kinds of things in that investigation. We learned on April 27th, 2022 that the Biden administration had established a disinformation governance board. That's right. A bunch of bureaucrats going to get together and tell you what you can say, what you can tweet, what you can post, what you can read, what's misinformation, what's disinformation and the new term They come up what's malformation? Thank goodness because many of us raised concerns about that. They disbanded that disinformation governance board. We no longer had that. We heard from journalists like Mr. Shellenberger, like Matt Taibbi regarding the Twitter files.

We heard from Tulsi Gabbard, we heard from RFK Jr., all Democrats, frankly, in fact, I took some heat for that. What are you doing bringing Democrats in front of the district? We brought 'em in because they care about the First Amendment. It was interesting when RFK JR came in to testify, the Democrats actually made a motion to go to executive session, kick everyone out, no journalist, no one was allowed. They wanted to kick everyone out, go to executive session so no one could hear what RFK Jr was going to testify to in a hearing on censorship. You can't make this stuff up. We learned that on January 23rd. Well think about that, by the way.

Well, we learned on January 23rd, 2021 maybe point this one out first that there was an email. So the third day, the Biden administration, there was an email sent from the White House to Twitter which said, take down this tweet, ASAP, and who had issued the tweet who had put out the tweet, RFK Jr. So you had the Biden administration trying to censor a fellow Democrat who was going to run against him in the Democrat primary. I mean that is, and everything in that tweet actually were true statements. So we learned all that last year and of course our investigation culminated with a letter from Mr. Zuckerberg on August 26th, 2024 last year where he said, yes, the Biden administration pressured us to censor. We did it. We're sorry and we won't do it again. And meta Facebook has now subsequently changed policy. They now go to the community notes policy instead of the independent fact checker approach that was being used before.

We had one other witness, last Congress journalist from Canada, Rupa Subramanya who I thought said something that was really important. She said, free speech is a core value of Western culture, and that is true and that's what our concern is. We're concerned about the attacks on free expression in Europe, the censorship, the arrest for offensive post, the chilling effect it all has on speech, but we're more concerned, frankly as Americans about the limits. The DSA, the Online Safety Act in the UK put on Americans First Amendment rights and the shakedown, and I think that's the appropriate term, the shakedown of American tech companies under the DSA, the OSA and the Digital Marketing Act in Digital Markets Act in the European Union, these acts target our tech companies that provide the modern town square and they're the engines of innovation in our global economy. Since the turn of the century, European tech companies have languished behind their American counterparts.

European governments have tried everything to change this except what might actually work, deregulating their own economy and letting free enterprise flourish instead of cutting red tape and allowing their own companies to innovate and grow. The EU and the UK are going after American companies that have grown to dominate the global tech landscape regulations like the eus Digital Markets Act and the UK's digital markets competition and Consumers Act imposed burdensome requirements on US tech companies while leaving their European counterparts untouched. But these attacks on American companies won't result in a so-called European champion. Instead, China wins as Europe hurts both itself and America. They make the user experience worse. They distort the digital marketplace by allowing less innovative and less efficient foreign competitors to simply steal from US tech companies. In addition to attacking American tech companies, Europe is attacking free speech around the world, including here in America.

Laws like the Digital Services Act and the Online Safety Act are the engines of global censorship regime targeting political speech disfavored by European bureaucrats. The censorship mechanism is simple. The DSA and the OSA effectively require social media platforms to change their terms of service to moderate more content. These companies have one set of standards that they apply globally because it's costly, impractical, and harmful to user privacy to change content moderation rules based on a user's location. So when platforms are forced to change their terms of service to comply with European laws, it affects what we see, what we read, what we say online here in America, infringing on American's First Amendment rights and this is no accident. Even the New York Times, The Atlantic have acknowledged that these foreign censorship laws are intended to have global impact and European actions have proven it.

Again, just look at Mr. Breton's letter. Supporters say these laws make the online environment safer for children. Something that we all agree with. We all want to protect kids, but censorship laws are never about disinformation or child safety or anything else. They're always about censoring criticism of the government. Social media is a relatively new technology, but censorship is as old as time misinformation. Disinformation hate speech. Labels are always used by the people in power to censor their critics, and my experience has taught me that today's misinformation is tomorrow's truth and we have seen it time and time again. I always like to point out everything the government told us about COVID turned out to be wrong. Everything our government told us about about COVID, I'm not even talking about Europe here. Everything they told us that the virus didn't come from a lab. Sure, it looks like it did. They told us it wasn't getting a function research done at the lab.

Yes it was. They told us it wasn't our tax money used at the lab. Yes it was. They told us vaccines. They told us that the vaccinated can't get it. They told us the vaccinate it can't transmit it. They told us mass work, they told us six feet social distance was based on science and they told us this was the first virus in history where there's no such thing as natural immunity. They were oh for eight and yet they're going to define with some disinformation governance board what we can say, what we can tweet, what we can read, what we can post. You got to be kidding me as RFK Jr. testified before our committee never forgot what he said. He said, when you look at history, when you look at history, it is never the good guys who are for censorship. It is always the bad guys and that's our concern. We need debate. The best way to answer bad speech, wrong speech, stupid speech, crazy speech, even hate speech is more speech. We need the First Amendment. Our committee will continue to move legislation that protects free speech from threats including threats from abroad. And with that, I now recognize our ranking member for his opening statement.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Thank you kindly, Mr. Chairman and welcome to our witnesses. I imagine that in a hearing about threats to freedom of speech abroad, we might hear from a Russian dissident about Putin's massive violations of political freedom or the death of Alexi Navalny in prison, or perhaps the Chinese pro-democracy activist about President Xi's attacks on free speech in Hong Kong, Tibet, Xinjiang, or the persecution trial of Jimmy Lai or maybe a journalist about the Saudi Crown Prince's assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post writer who demanded freedom from religious persecution and oppression in Saudi Arabia. But no, the dictators of the world have gotten nothing of fear from this hearing. The Republicans called it to attack our democratic allies in Europe. The star witness is not a human rights leader like Navalny, but a far right pro Putin politician who leads the UK reform party, A party that is four members out of 650 members in the parliament.

He calls England an authoritarian regime while saying that Vladimir Putin is the world leader. He admires the most. Well, this hearing mimics vice president JD Vance who went to the Munich Security Conference in February in the first two minutes of his speech, whitewashed the world's leading autocratic regimes, proclaiming that the threat that worries him is not Russia, it's not China, he said, but rather it's our European allies. Amazing Republicans are promoting far right parties in Europe like alternative for Deutschland reform UK and ignoring massive repression in Russia, China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and among all the autocrats of the world, Republicans are vilifying European liberal democracies simply for engaging in the kind of line drawing exercises that we Americans engage in under our first amendment with respect to the epidemic of child pornography, protecting children from other harmful content, defamatory speech, online scams and false advertising and speech, inciting riots and imminent lawless action.

All forms of speech that the First Amendment does not protect and whose tricky contours must still be drawn by law. We could have a meaningful hearing on this complicated subject, but this hearing's just the drive-by hit against a strong democratic ally to benefit a Donald Trump sycophant and wannabe, but it's even worse than this. Not only are colleagues ignoring intensifying repression in the world's dictatorships, they're also trying to distract the world from the attack on freedom taking place right here in America every single day. Americans aren't worried about the EU or the Online Safety Act in the UK. We're not worried about white nationalists not having enough license to incite lynch mobs to set immigrants on fire in their bedrooms. Americans are worried that Donald Trump is working to rewrite and whitewash American history in our museums, our textbooks, and our national parks to destroy PBS and NPR and public broadcasting to ban books in our libraries and to censor any news stories critical of him by installing political henchmen in private broadcast rooms.

Americans know that academic freedom is in danger when the administration cancels and withholds billions of dollars in scientific and medical research funding from American universities even for urgent lifesaving studies about breast cancer or heart attacks as a way to force schools to impose government orthodoxy on curriculum, hiring, admissions, and any student and faculty speech that MAGA considers politically incorrect. Americans see Trump trying to harass, intimidate, control and shut down the press like ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR and PBS. The Republican controlled FCC essentially blackmail media companies Skydance and Paramount into agreeing to install a spy, a monitor, a minor I think the Brits might say to police CBS news programs to make sure that they are being sufficiently Trumpy in giving us the news in order to get approval of a merger from FCC. Meanwhile, Trump sued 60 Minutes and CBS personally for $20 billion for the frivolous cause of action that he thought an interview with Kamala Harris was edited too favorably and then walked away with a cool $16 million in a shakedown settlement for his library.

All part of a now familiar pattern when Trump doesn't like the news, he sues the broadcaster and unleashes the FCC on them until they pay up and agree to a government spy stationed in their office. Free speech is so much in danger in the US today that if the government tries to violate our rights, we might not even be able to find a lawyer to defend ourselves because Trump is systematically exacting retribution against law firms that represent anyone on the other side of a case against him. Look, our country loves free speech. We fight for free speech, we fought for free speech and we know it's in danger when students who are lawfully in the United States are taken off the street and arrested without warrants by masked federal agents in unmarked cars for writing an article or attending a rally that Steven Miller doesn't like. Free speech is in danger when visitors to our country have their social media accounts screamed at the border for any criticism of Donald Trump free speech in danger when to Kill a Mockingbird, The Handmaid's Tale 1984 and the Kite Runner are banned from our schools and libraries across the country and even families defending our freedom abroad have to fight for their kids' right to read freely in public schools run by the Department of Defense freedom's in danger when the administration tramples the civil service rights of hundreds of thousands of nonpartisan expert civil servants. These civil servants have been protected against political discrimination for more than a century to maintain the excellence and independence of our federal workforce, but they're now being fired simply for doing their jobs like prosecuting violent criminals and insurrectionists who try to overthrow our government and attack our police officers or because they honestly gave honest economic information and labor statistics to the public. These honorable civil servants are being fired because they won't be the political hacks Trump demands that they be when private comments made by federal employees are scrutinized for anti-Trump bias and they can lose their jobs because of it, then we've entered the realm not just of Vladimir Putin, but of Joseph Stalin.

Now Mr. Trump and Mr. Farage both claim they're protectors of free speech, but they only want to protect speech they agree with. In the UK, Mr. Farage is openly promoting the abolition of the Human Rights Act of 1998 to be replaced with a British bill of rights that limits the right of free speech to British citizens and legally sanctioned residents. He complains that racist threats against immigrants are not protected free speech while he proposes to strip migrants, tourists, and perhaps even visiting American congresspeople of any free speech rights at all. I had my own close encounter with that when Mr. Farage and his team presented for more than an hour in a conversation we had about free speech and after three minutes of talking, he cut me off and terminated the meeting because he didn't like what I was saying. That's the kind of free speech he's committed to.

There is a free speech crisis in America today, but there's no free speech crisis in Britain UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has not shut down GB News where Mr. Farage has his own show just because Mr. Farage has used his airtime to call for banning peaceful protests that he disagrees with. No one has stopped him from going on Russian TV 17 times. In saying also and repeating that the one world political leader he most admired was Vladimir Putin. Even though Vladimir Putin is a war criminal and a dictator who is regularly interfered in other countries democratic elections, no one has stopped Mr. Farage from parroting Putin's absurd talking points like when Farage claimed that NATO, the US and Britain provoked this war in Ukraine for a man who fashions himself as some kind of a free speech martyr, Mr. Farage seems most at home with the autocrats in dictators of the world who are crushing freedom on earth.

Mr. Farage wants to get rid of the Online Safety Act in his country, a law shepherded by the conservative party and implemented by the Labor Party, which bans child pornography online protects children from harmful content, forbids, non-consensual pornography and other unlawful content. He should go and advance the positions he's taking here in Congress today in parliament, which is meeting today. If he's serious about it, to the people of UK who think this Putin loving free speech impostor and Trump's sycophant will protect freedom in your country. Come on over to America and see what Trump and mega are doing to destroy our freedom. Kidnap college students off the street ban books from our libraries, militarize our police and unleash them against our communities, take over our universities, wreck our professional civil service and turn the government into a moneymaking machine for Trump and his family. You might think twice before you let Mr. Farage make Britain great again. I yield back.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

The gentleman yields back. I would just point out that the encounter that Ranking Member had with Mr. Farage was a little different at my recollection than how it was described, and I would also point out that the gentleman alleges there's no free speech in America under President Trump while his staff member is holding up countless number of articles criticizing the Trump administration. I think that's a little bit of a well let, let's say that's not how I think it actually goes.

So we now will introduce today's witnesses. We will start with the right honorable Nigel Farage. Mr. Farage is a member of Parliament from Clacton and the leader of the Reform UK party. He's also a television host and was the leading proponent of the Brexit campaign. Mr. Lorcán Price is an attorney with the ADF international, a nonprofit organization that works to protect religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.

Before joining ADF International, he was an attorney in Ireland. Mr. Morgan Reed is the president of the App Association, a trade association comprised of app developers and connected device manufacturers. He routinely testifies before Congress on matters of interest to his members, including artificial intelligence, competition and other issues. And we have Professor David Kaye. Mr. Kaye is a clinical professor of law at the UC Irvine School of Law, Professor Kaye previously served as the United States special repertoire on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression. We welcome our witnesses and thank them for appearing today. We'll begin by swearing you in. Would you all please rise and raise your right hand?

Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony you're about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge, information, and beliefs, so help you God? Let the record show that each of the witnesses answered in the affirmative. Thank you. Please be seated. Please know that your written testimony will be entered into the record in its entirely accordingly. We ask that you summarize your testimony in five minutes. I think we'll just go down the line and we will start with Mr. Reed and Mr. Price, Mr. Farage and then Professor Kaye. So Mr. Reed, you're recognized for five minutes.

Morgan Reed:

My name is Morgan Reed and I'm the president of ACT, the App Association. Our members are small and medium sized tech companies. From your districts and around the world, we build and sell the apps on the products you love. If you're scheduling a haircut, tracking your productivity at work or using online tools to train your employees, it's likely one of my members made that happen. I'm here to tell you that our European members are just as good, just as smart and just as entrepreneurial as our American members. Whether it's Clément Sauvage in France, Mitchel Volkering in the Netherlands, or Mark Thomas in the UK, their companies are busy trying to change the world. The difference between them and our American members can be seen in the ever-growing wall of ex anti-regulation and compliance requirements from an EU government that is constantly asking how government can be more involved rather than less.

Unfortunately, the DMA is a perfect encapsulation of the problem. Ostensibly, it exists to make it easier for EU companies to compete with the US tech lead instead, it just creates leadership in red tape. Small companies find value in the bigger platforms for three boring and absolutely vital reasons. They need to offload overhead, have access to a global market and have customer trust because small businesses are always overworked and undermanned. For us, offloading overhead is critical. A small business is trying to ship a product, not learn about tax laws in 160 countries. We don't want to sign multiple contracts with middlemen to handle shipping or web storage or send bills to dozens of different platforms each with their own PO system. Small businesses need to focus their time on serving the customer to compete and of course, to grow your small business, you need customers and that means access to a global market.

If your product has fewer than a hundred customers in your state, that's a hobby, but a hundred thousand customers worldwide, that's a business. Nearly every one of the DMAs designated gatekeepers are actually gateways to a global market. But you might say, Morgan, the internet itself is a global market and we would agree, but the internet lacks one key characteristic trust today many of us take for granted the measures of keeping malware and other harmful content off of our devices and off of our shopping sites, but DMA threatens to change this by forcing companies to roll out the red carpet for bad actors. As a result, consumers will rationally steer away from startups and small developers they've never heard of and towards larger, more established rivals that spend millions on marketing and buy Super Bowl ads to build their brand. Don't forget who's pushing the DMA.

It's companies like Spotify, Yelp, DuckDuckGo, companies you've heard of, and just in case you think I'm exaggerating, the first business to take advantage of the DMAs requirements wasn't some brilliant startup being kept down by Big Tech. It was an app called Hot Tub, a porn aggregator that can now be sideloaded and could even operate without parental controls. This is the most damaging aspect of the DMA by forcing the gatekeepers to remove features or capabilities that would keep bad actors off your smartphone and out of your wallet, the DMA demands the world adopt a flea market model where anybody with a plastic folding table in some boxes that fell off the back of the truck are given the same access to consumers as legitimate businesses For small businesses, we want the platforms to provide us with ever improving tools, features, and pricing models to make it attractive.

We don't love the big platforms. We do business with them because without our products, their platforms aren't worth very much without their tools, our overhead goes up, our speed goes down, and trust goes out the window. If we have any ask of the platforms, it's for them to do more, not less. We want them to do more to reduce overhead, more to protect our intellectual property and do more to maintain those trust relationships and into this relatively straightforward business arrangement. Europe has injected regulatory walls like the Digital Markets Act, the Digital Services Act, the Online Safety Act, our old friend GDPR and the newest edition, the AI Act. These laws aren't there to lower friction. They are, as Theresa Rivera at the European Commission puts it focused on creating a culture of compliance. That's a quote. While an ever thickening wall of overlapping regulations is exactly what compliance lawyers want, it's not what innovators want. It's not what small businesses want and it's not what customers want. We ask you to reject the European regulatory culture and instead focus on a culture of opportunity and innovation. Small businesses never succeed if we can't beat the red tape. Thank you very much for your time and I look forward to your questions.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Thank you, Mr. Reed. Mr. Price, you're recognized for five minutes. Thank you.

Lorcán Price:

Thank you very much. Good morning Chairman Jordan, Ranking Member Raskin distinguished members of the committee. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Lorcán Price. I'm a barrister and legal counsel for ADF International and I'm very happy to come here today to speak to you about the perilous situation for freedom of expression in Europe and why it matters for Americans. I do this on the basis of my experience litigating in speech and religious liberty cases before the European Court of Human Rights. However, today principally I wish to address the Digital Services Act of the European Union, but before I do that, I'd like to set the scene briefly by telling you how bad things have become in Europe and the United Kingdom and very much building on the remarks of the chairman because when I met some of members of the committee in Europe recently, I think that there was a genuine element of surprise and disbelief about the state of affairs in Europe.

I'll give you some examples. In Finland, our client Pavy Razin, a member of parliament, is now in year five of a prosecution for simply posting a verse from scripture on Twitter. Our client Rose Doherty in Scotland, a 74-year-old grandmother was arrested by offering to have consensual conversations for people. Adam Smith-Connor, an army veteran, was prosecuted for praying silently in his head in England and just yesterday you'll have seen that the UK police arrested a comedian and fellow Irishman, Graham Linehan, a person I know well, for tweets about gender ideology, German pensioners are having their homes raided and are being prosecuted for insulting politicians. Indeed, one member of the Green Party in Germany has over 700 criminal complaints outstanding. For insult, what's happening in Europe is as Vice President Vance said on St. Valentine's Day in Munich, a serious retreat from a fundamental value that of free speech.

It's a sign that our European political elite has lost control of the narrative and the Digital Services Act is the response to that an increasingly desperate attempt to suppress growing public discontent. Why should this matter for Americans? Why should you be concerned? Because of the worldwide reach of European law, the so-called Brussels effect changes regulation in every area that the European Union chooses to regulate, and now they've entered the business of regulating speech and they're very proud of the Brussels or the so-called Brussels effect when you ask them about it. This new EU law is essentially an antis speech law, and when you read the case law of the European Court of Justice statements from senior officials and the provisions of the Digital Services Act, you can see everything is there to create a digital censorship industrial complex. We see a whole structure of trusted flaggers codes of conduct on so-called hate speech and misinformation, content moderation for so-called systemic risks.

Much of this is hidden in bland technocratic language in the DSA and our written submissions go into some of the problems associated with it, but it constitutes nothing more than an attempt to bring Brussels regulation of speech onto a global stage. Furthermore, when the European Union is now negotiating trade deals, including with your neighbors to the Northern Canada, they insist that the Digital Services Act is part of that, so it's very clearly a global intent. It means that the European Union will set the global standard when it comes to speech and because of the laws that I just outlined in Europe, the type of prosecutions we're seeing, it's an extremely low standard. It draws. I would suggest to you a digital curtain where once there was an iron curtain and US companies bear the brunt disproportionately of this, they're hijacked by the DSA to become essentially the EU's global censorship police, whether they like it or not, the DSA contains expansive powers of investigation, huge compliance costs and crippling fines of their fine to be noncompliant for removing so-called illegal content.

Indeed, I commend your committee's report recently on showing the bias at the heart of the system. As we speak, companies are having to make a decision, an invidious decision between whether or not they defend German pensioners criticizing politicians or they comply with the European Commission and with national laws. We know from COVID censorship, which is the most likely route they take compliance is easier and cheaper, but it is not good for speech. Indeed. Yesterday I was just informed by a senior lawyer for a major US company that the Germans are prosecuting a 14-year-old boy for a mild online post. They want the identity of another post outside Germany and they've launched criminal proceedings against US employees of this company for refusing to pass over the identity information. That's the attitude we're dealing with. We've seen it from Ari Breton, from others in the European Commission.

They want this censorship power and they want it globally. The digital square is one of the great gifts from the United States to the world. It has been transformative for our political discussion, but the EU wants to make itself the share of the square and it's armed itself with powerful tools and there are more to come, unfortunately, including the Democracy Shield. I agree with ranking member Raskin that it is sad when close allies and democracies do this kind of thing and we must call them out for it. We must take a stand against this new censorship wave. Democracy requires free speech. I'm looking forward to our discussion and any questions you may have.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Thank you, Mr. Price. The right honorable member of parliament, Mr. Farage is recognized.

Nigel Farage, MP:

Well, thank you very much indeed. Good morning everybody. Thank you Chairman Jordan for inviting me here today and it turns out with news in the last 48 hours to have been really rather timely. I'm delighted to reacquaint with the charming Mr. Raskin delightful testimony you gave me earlier on with your speech, but hey, that's fine. You can say what you like. I don't care because that's what free speech is and in a sense, this has all been going wrong now for a couple of decades. We've kind of forgotten the Voltaire principles that we'll fight and defend to the death, your right to say something that we fundamentally disagree with. That is the absolute foundation if you think about it, of free speech, of democracy, of living in freedom. It's kind of why we fought two world wars at massive, massive cost to defend that very principle for ourselves and for many, many others around the country.

And I first became worried about all this with cancel culture, the idea that we can't have this speaker go to a university because some people might be offended by what he or she have to say. It is important to note that there is not a parent in the United Kingdom, and I would guess it's the same for America too, that is not concerned about content their children as miners can find on the internet. Not a single parent that is not concerned about this, but at the moment we're not finding the right solutions. I do myself begin to think that hardware might be one of the solutions that laptops, that headsets could be programmed so that many, many apps and many, many services simply aren't available from these devices. But what we've done is to go down the legislative route and it's extraordinary that I come from the land of Magna Carta or I come from a land that gave us the mother of Parliament and it doesn't give me any great joy to be sitting in America and describing the really awful authoritarian situation that we have now sunk into.

JD Vance did us all a service at the Munich Security Conference back in February this year. He really got this debate up and running and it's a vital one we've run on since then. The Online Safety Act was put in place by the last conservative government. I don't doubt for a minute. They're good intentions, but sometimes the road to hell is paved with those good intentions and we are now where we are. We have a couple of very famous cases. We of course have Lucy Connolly who put out an temperate tweet after the savage murder of those three beautiful young girls, she herself a mother who had lost a child. It wasn't temperate, it was wrong, but she removed it three and a half hours later, sentenced to 31 months in prison. She's now out having served 40% of the time. I wanted to bring her with me today as living proof of what can go wrong.

Sadly, the restrictions that have been put on her banned her from making the trip, which is a very, very great shame. And we of course have the extraordinary events that we understood yesterday of Graham Linehan, the comedy writer, comedic writer, and he put out some tweets months ago when he was in Arizona and months later he arrives at Heathrow Airport to be met by five armed police, armed police, not a big deal in the USA, A very big deal in the United Kingdom, five of them, and he was arrested and taken away for questioning. He's not even a British citizen. He's an Irish citizen. This could happen to any American man or woman that goes to Heathrow that has said things online that the British government and British police don't like. It is a potentially big threat to tech bosses to many, many others. This legislation we've got will damage trade between our countries threaten free speech across the west because of the knock on rollout effects of this legislation from us or from the European Union. So I've come today as well to be a claxon, to say to you, don't allow piece by piece this to happen here in America and you will be doing us and yourselves and all freedom loving people a favor. If your politicians and your businesses said to the British government, you've simply got this wrong. At what point did we become North Korea? Well, I think the Irish comedy writer found that out two days ago at Heathrow Airport. This is a genuinely worrying concerning and shocking situation, and I thank you for the opportunity to come here today.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Well said. Thank you, Mr. Farage. Professor Kaye, you're recognized for five minutes.

David Kaye:

Chairman Jordan, Ranking Member Raskin, members of the committee, thank you for the invitation to appear before you. I ask that my written statement be entered into the record.

My name is David Kaye. I'm a law professor at the University of California Irvine where I research and teach in international law. I know something about censorship. From 2014 to 2020, I was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression. In that role, I monitored a growing global assault on free speech among other things. I led a landmark effort to call out China's attacks on civil society. I detailed repression of media and criticism in Putin's Russia. I condemned Iran's suppression of dissent and I even criticized democratic governments when they sought it to force platforms to take down lawful speech that is censorship violations of the human right to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds guaranteed by Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a treaty ratified by the United States in 1992 inspired by the First Amendment, it guarantees a speaker's rights and the rights of everyone to access information.

So it pains me that the United States, the country that had my back as Special Rapporteur, the land of the First Amendment's 'make no law' now leads the charge to undermine freedom of speech and of the press. The threat is real live and I think shocking given our nation's historic commitments. The administration follows a well-worn path. A few examples, the silencing of scientists and public health officials. Just last week, the head of the CDC was fired because she would not agree to change her conclusions about vaccines. The administration has scrubbed websites that doctors and parents use to make decisions censoring and punishing speech of visitors in visa interviews and at the border, there are increasing reports of officers screening visitors according to their social media activity or detaining and deporting based on speech and op-eds and the repeated assaults on the media.

As we've seen attacks on public broadcasting, frivolous lawsuits against media outlets and the decimation of Voice of America, this is the tip of an iceberg of censorship that should concern this committee and every American yet US officials who claim to be free speech warriors are spending their time looking abroad. Now I know of nobody who argues that EU and British laws on speech are perfect. Still, the EU Digital Services Act and the UK Online Safety Act respond to problems both sides of the aisle and Congress have found serious but have yet to address the enormous opaque and unaccountable power of a small number of massive tech companies. Over our information environments, the EU answered the question of massive platform power, not by claiming new powers to take down content or accounts. It adopted new rules to empower users including by requiring notice and an opportunity to appeal content moderation decisions.

The Online Safety Act championed by labor and conservative parties was widely popular as an attempt to hold Big Tech accountable. It does have elements that concern me yet whatever faults it might have. It like any other British law is subject to legal challenge and review by courts for any violation of fundamental rights, just as we would expect of any democracy, neither established censorship regimes. I encourage members of this committee to consider two things. First, instead of criticizing allied democracies, consider the kinds of content online that you find objectionable. Maybe it's antisemitic or Islamophobic, content, misogyny, child endangerment, content glorifying terrorism or inciting violence. How do you propose to address those in a way that is consistent with free speech values? That's not an easy question and it can't be waived away with just three words because free speech, the EU and the UK have made their choices subject to democratic judicial oversight and acting in good faith. I think this committee could do the same. Second, this committee has the obligation to protect American's freedom of expression here at home. The administration is putting freedom of expression under direct attack, and I think oversight and constraint from this committee would make quite a bit of sense that I would respectfully submit is the real threat to American speech and innovation, and I look forward to your questions. Thank you.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Thank you, professor. We'll now proceed under the five minute rule. The chair now recognizes the chairman of the subcommittee, Mr. Fitzgerald.

Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI):

Thank you Chairman Jordan. Well, one of the things we found out on our trip through Europe was that the US innovates, China duplicates and now the EU regulates. Mr. Reed, I have a question for you. First reports estimate that complying with the EU's Digital Marketing Act, the DMA could cost American companies up to a billion dollars every single year. That's not just a number on a page. Those costs ultimately fall on American workers who will see fewer jobs on consumers who will face higher prices and fewer choices, and on entrepreneurs who will have a harder time competing against subsidized foreign rivals. Mr. Reed, is it correct that these compliance costs affect our economy and what does it mean for America if Europe is allowed to impose these kind of costs on US innovation?

Morgan Reed:

The short answer is yes, absolutely. The more detailed answer is is that unfortunately the Europe has taken an ex ante approach to regulation. The United States has always done well with an ex post. As a small business entrepreneur, I actually want fraud to be gone after I want deceptive practices to be reduced, but unfortunately what we see in the EU is an ex ante process that ups my compliance requirements without actually giving customers the certainty of the result. So it's absolutely raising costs and for American developers, we see one of the largest problems is how do you get to those European customers if the first track you hit is paying a compliance lawyer to meet all of these tests.

Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI):

Thank you, Mr. Price. Our Federal Trade Commission Chairman Ferguson has warned the government regulation can stifle obviously competition and innovation and in many cases the government itself becomes the most dangerous of all the monopolies, isn't it? Is the DMA perfect example of that? It kind of weaponizes and makes it burdensome with regulations. Can you give me your comments on the DMA and what do you think the status is right now?

Lorcán Price:

I certainly agree that European regulation generally slows down competition. It creates a situation whereby companies are unable to innovate with any degree of speed because they're constantly looking over their shoulder towards regulators, around compliance. DMA very good example of that, not just the DMA though of course you have the general data protection regulation, GDPR, you have the DSA, the Digital Services Act and constantly more and more being added. It's been estimated in the digital market space alone since 2016, 30 pages of regulation exists at the time, we're now over a thousand and growing. So the European Union's response to American innovation is more and more regulation generally around nebulous concepts like safety is and protecting consumers. But very often, just particularly with the DSA to create, unfortunately a censorship industrial complex as I outlined DMA very good example of that as well.

Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI):

Thank you very much. Mr. Reed, if I could come back to you. President Trump just secured a landmark commitment from the EU to address unjustified digital trade barriers. It was part of the US EU trade deal. I'm hopeful that this will result in the EU kind of removing, and a lot of people we talked to in Europe when we were there said that there was a possibility that they could pull back on some of this. What action could President Trump take to hold the EU accountable to their commitment? And are there additional enforcement tools that Congress could provide to make that happen?

Morgan Reed:

Well, I think Congressman Fitzgerald, you've done great work in reaching out and sending letters to make it clear what the position of the United States government is on these issues. The reality is is that the Europeans themselves through the druggie report are recognizing that they have done a lot to harm theirs, those very same industries. We're hopeful that the United States can continue to use the careful power and the careful discussions through our trade negotiations and other actions to get them to step back. But we're here to talk about free speech. One of the things I would point out is we want the small businesses in Europe to also be able to speak and say, Hey, we need these regulations pulled back.

Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI):

So just to follow up to that then as well, a 2024 staff report by the Housing Oversight Committee found that FTC chair, Lina Kahn was using taxpayer dollars to send agency liaisons to the EU to assist with the implementation of the Digital Markets Act. Mr. Reed, do you think it's appropriate for that type of consultation or for the use of taxpayer dollars to help a foreign country implement laws that unfairly discriminate against US companies?

Morgan Reed:

Well, we don't think taxpayer dollars should ever be used to unfairly discriminate against the United States companies. We're hopeful that US taxpayer dollars can be used to ensure open markets around the world and a safe environment for our entrepreneurs to succeed.

Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI):

Thank you, chairman. I yield back.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Gentlemen yields back the chairman, I recognizes the chairman ranking member of the subcommittee, gentlemen who made a big announcement this week we're sorry to hear about, but we appreciate your service and you're recognized for five minutes.

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There is a clear and present danger to free speech in America, but it is not across the Atlantic Ocean. It's right here in Washington, sitting in the Oval Office at a time when the greatest threat to the First Amendment rights of Americans resides in the White House. Our Republican colleagues have brought us here today to talk about Europe. They've invited a fringe politician from the United Kingdom to attack the laws regulating certain conduct online in his country and the European Union laws that are intended to combat disinformation by hostile of foreign actors, hate speech and other fraudulent or criminal conduct. They've sounded the alarms about these foreign laws, but when it comes to the Trump administration suppression of speech in this country, Republicans are curiously and dangerously silent. There is virtually no corner of society that Donald Trump and his administration have left untouched by their effort to impose their radical views on the American people and to stamp out descent.

Since taking office, President Trump and members of his administration have used the powers of the executive branch in an attempt to silence their political opponents by attacking our core democratic institutions such as academia, the legal profession and journalism, these are moves straight out of the authoritarian playbook. For example, the Trump administration has taken aim at colleges and universities trying to bend them to its will by withholding billions of dollars in scientific research funding, a shortsighted move that will set back innovation in this country by decades and in some cases, including at my alma mater of Columbia, it is demanded onerous conditions that infringe on academic freedom On these same college campuses, students are being kidnapped for writing op-eds and others are being deported for participating in protests. The Trump administration has also targeted disfavored law firms that dare to challenge the President or to hold him accountable or simply for hiring an attorney who clashed with Trump.

In the past, some have sadly capitulated to its campaign of extortion. The press has even taken aim at the arts and humanities launching a hostile takeover at the Kennedy Center and censoring exhibits at the Smithsonian Institution attempting to whitewash American history and to stamp out free expression, he is also engaged in a dangerous campaign of harassment and intimidation of the media. For example, last October, he sued CBS for $10 billion for editing a 60 minutes interview with Kamala Harris in a way he didn't like, although this suit was widely ridiculed by First Amendment attorneys who called it meritless and absurd paramount, the parent company of CBS News was desperate to win approval from the Trump controlled FCC for its proposed multi-billion dollar merger and felt pressured to settle this basis lawsuit. Ultimately, it paid $16 million to settle the suit and just days later, the FCC approved the merger.

What a coincidence. This followed ABC settlement of a similarly basis Trump lawsuit for $15 million because of corporate pressure and now the Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch face their own $10 billion lawsuit from Donald Trump over the journal's reporting that shed new light on Trump's well-documented relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. I'm not aware of any president in the past suing media companies or newspapers or television stations for a free expression they didn't like. Professor Kaye, the free press is essential to our democracy and the rule of law. Can you explain how President Trump's attacks on the news media and his attempts to sue them into silence, impact, freedom of expression and freedom of speech in this country?

David Kaye:

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Nadler, and congratulations on your announcement this week. Well, I think it's important to note that when we're talking about attacks on the press, it's not just about attacks on the journalists themselves or the media outlets themselves. It's about every American's right of access to information. It's about the freedom of public debate that we get from a media that isn't intimidated either by suit or by criticism from the Oval Office or whatever it might be. And so I think it's really important to think about these kinds of attacks not only as those on journalists, but on the entire information ecosystem. And I think it's also important for us to realize that we can't pick and choose what censorship we like and don't like. I think the chairman's statement was really correct when he said censorship used by people in power to censor critics that that's at the core and we should be examining where do we see that? We tend to see that quite a bit in this country. I think in an unprecedented way.

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY):

In your testimony, you identified a number of threats to freedom of expression in the United States, including science of public health. It's also been reported that the government has a list of hundreds of words ranging from issues related to climate change, to diversity, equity, and inclusion that it essentially has banned from government websites and users to make funding decisions. Is this true?

David Kaye:

I've seen those reports and I understand that to be true as well. Particularly the use of lists of words essentially to censor research that would be conducted by scientists at universities and at National Academies in the United States.

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY):

Thank you. My time has expired, I yield back.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Gentlemen yields back, Ranking Member's recognized for unanimous consent. Gentleman is recognized.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Mr. Chairman, this is a minority fact sheet about the majority's report on the Digital Services Act.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Well, we will look forward to reading that without objection.

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY):

Mr. Chairman, I have another excuse.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

The gentleman from New York is recognized for unanimous consent.

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY):

Mr. Chairman, I have a unanimous consent request. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record and article published by Reuters on October 29th, 2024 titled "Fact Check: UK Woman Jailed for Inciting Racial Hatred, Not Posting Hurtful Words," which confirms that Lucy Connolly pled guilty to inciting racial hatred and was not as claimed in deceptive social media posts punished merely for posting edgy words on the internet.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Without objection. I'm sure we'll hear some comments about that later. And the gentleman from California is recognized for five minutes.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Professor Kaye, being a fellow California, and I'm sure you're aware and could correct the ranking member that our own governor has sued Fox for $787 million. Isn't that a correct?

David Kaye:

I'm not familiar with that.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA):

Well, I didn't think you would be, but neither was the ranking member, apparently Minister or sorry, MP Mirage. Farage. Do you have the equivalent of what the Professor Kaye was talking about, which is the Article 19, you're a signatory to that international convention, if you will, on free speech. Do you feel that it is being observed in the UK?

Nigel Farage, MP:

Maybe a signatory to it? And we may, and the Prime Minister today in the House of Commons was talking about free speech and indeed when President Trump was with him in Scotland the other day, he talked about our proud history of free speech. But what people say and what they do are two very different things. And the argument is that the Online Safety Act, I'll repeat what I said earlier, may have been designed by the Tories with the best of intentions, but has turned out to be the sledgehammer that misses the nut. It's not protecting kids and it is damaging.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA):

So now going back to the United States, you don't have a constitutional framework that is the equivalent of ours in that you have no First Amendment absolute guarantee. Is that correct?

Nigel Farage, MP:

It is correct. I mean our constitution isn't in written form. It's based on common law that's evolved and adapted over centuries. And your founding fathers look at the best bits that we have.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA):

So it appears in Europe and in the UK free speech is whatever the bloody members think it is at a given time and it changes with the will of the people they elect. Is that right?

Nigel Farage, MP:

Yes, but I think, I mean I don't think at any point we've really had a proper debate about infringements of free speech until COVID and I think COVID changed the game. Okay. I think the government, social media platforms, big media, suddenly there were arguments that needed to be made that were banned.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA):

So Mr. Reed, to your knowledge, and I would go to the professor, but he seems to be ill-informed even on our own governor's lawsuits, first Amendment in the United States, you can sue for anything. Do you often win if you sue against institutions like Fox, wall Street Journal? Isn't it true that effectively the First Amendment creates a tremendous shield against anything except malicious? Deliberate lies

Morgan Reed:

Not my area of expertise. We can absolutely talk about apps, but as an American, yes, that is absolutely my understanding.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA):

Okay. And you have no such protection, just the opposite. You have no idea in Europe or in Britain about what is going to be allowed or not allowed. In other words, you don't know where to call balls and strikes. You just simply have to pay the fines when you get to them.

Morgan Reed:

Well, I only carry one passport, so I am more aware of the American laws, but that is my understanding. Correct.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA):

Okay. Now we do have a First Amendment and we are a signature to Article 19. So I'm going to draft, I'm going to go a little bit into opinion now. I'm the author of No Censorship on Our Shores, meaning Mr. Price. I know you're familiar with it. I'm not going to tolerate censorship overseas and then have those people come to the United States. Now, Mr. Professor Kaye may object to the idea that I'm not going to let people who have been involved in censorship come into the United States because I think it's unacceptable to get away with that overseas. But let's be reciprocal for a moment for Mr. Reed and for everyone. If we're seeing Europe and the UK and other countries stifle what we are guaranteed in the US and particularly arrest somebody for what they said while on US soils, shouldn't this administration be just as strong and reciprocal that we will not tolerate that activity even off our shores? And isn't that ultimately what the United States must make available to the world essentially guarantee the First Amendment to anyone, anywhere if they want to do business with the United States. Mr. Price.

Lorcán Price:

The leadership of the United States on this issue, this issue has been transformative for the discussion in Europe and from the President, Secretary Rubio and the Vice President, they have transformed the issue and I hope more comes.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA):

So to the fringe parliamentarian as you were called, and probably the future Prime Minister. What say you?

Nigel Farage, MP:

Yes, but for Mr. Nadler's benefit, it's a very big fringe and we're doing rather well, but there we are. Look, if you were to follow Mr. Issa, the logic of your argument that you were to ban people from entering America who would pass legislation that was prejudicial against American companies or American citizens and would threaten them with potential arrest if they came across the other side of the pond, I think the practical difficulty with that is you'd have to ban the British government, the entire Labour Party. So I'm not sure in practical terms that it works, but I understand the sentiment.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA):

Thank you. I yield back.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Gentleman yields back. The gentle lady from California is recognized for five minutes.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA):

Thank you Mr. Chairman. Let me be clear. I am not here to defend the European laws and I've often criticized the approach of European countries to internet related issues. It's really generally wrongheaded, but I don't really think that's the point of this hearing. I think the real threat to the First Amendment isn't coming from Europe. It's coming from Republican-led states that have introduced bills to close the open internet and most of all from Donald Trump who's actively trampling free speech here at home. I think it's rather absurd for this committee to spend our time criticizing laws we have no jurisdiction over while ignoring the countless ways the Trump administration is tearing up the First Amendment. If this committee is really serious about protecting free speech, we need to focus on the Trump administration's literal assault on the First Amendment that's happening right here at home. So Professor Kaye, I have a series of questions for you. Do you think that arresting international students for being critical of US foreign policy is an attack on the First Amendment?

David Kaye:

Yes, absolutely.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA):

And isn't that because it's not just the right of the person to speak, but the right of all the rest of us to hear the First Amendment isn't just about the speaker, it's also about the listener. Isn't that correct? Right.

David Kaye:

That's true.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA):

Now, a federal judge agreed with you and with us warning that arresting students for their views chills the speech of millions of Americans. The government can't punish speech simply because they don't like its content. This year has been mentioned by others. President Trump, FCC blocked the CBS merger until the network agreed to change its programming and install a so-called bias monitor. The head of 60 Minutes resigned saying he could no longer make independent decisions about the news. Doesn't that sound like a violation of the First Amendment's guarantee of a free press?

David Kaye:

It does, and I think it's important to underline that restrictions on free speech don't come just from a law or the police outside your door. It can come from a whole network of intimidation of public attack that really does chill speech including the kinds of attacks that lead to deportations of people who are here just to study.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA):

Since January, the Trump administration has revoked over 6,000 student visas because the speech of these students didn't align with what Trump agreed with and now they're doing the same to immigrants who are applying for citizenship. Does that raise First Amendment concerns do you think?

David Kaye:

I think it raises First Amendment concerns, but it's also in a broader way, it's raising concerns about our tolerance of dissent of this government's tolerance of criticism and not everything is specifically about the First Amendment and the ability to enforce it in our courts. Sometimes it's about leaders in our country actually promoting a culture of open debate and open access to information. The very things that we've heard a lot about already this morning, a kind of marketplace of ideas that some people still talk about that's not just about what the law provides. That's also about how our leaders behave towards that kind of open debate.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA):

The Federal Trade Commission held up a merger of two major advertising firms, Omnicom and Interpublic, until they agreed to run ads on X, essentially a government ordered gift to Elon Musk. Isn't that a blatant violation of free speech standards forcing private companies to promote speech they otherwise wouldn't?

David Kaye:

It's certainly a kind of extensive use of the term of Jawboning that has come up over the last several years and it's a kind of pressure that absolutely interferes with free speech and it's also the kind of weaponizing of our federal agencies in support of a particular actor, a particular business person.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA):

It seems to me that these actions affect not just the companies or the individuals that are the target of this abuse, but they're also to scare off everyone else from engaging in that behavior. Would you agree with that?

David Kaye:

Yeah, absolutely. I think that what we're seeing right now with just this essentially a kind of avalanche of restrictions and intimidations of free speech in this country, that it's designed to chill, that kind of debate. It's designed to chill whistleblowers, to chill scientists, to chill professors and students. I think that's essentially what we're witnessing right now.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA):

My time has expired, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Gentle lady yields back.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA):

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Request from gentleman from California.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA):

Yes. I ask unanimous consent that the Politico ad or news that was dated June 27th, 2025 saying "Gavin Newsom Sues for 787 Million" be placed in the record

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Without objection. Mr. Price, does anything in the Digital Services Act changed in the last year?

Lorcán Price:

No, sir.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Hasn't been amended. Hasn't been changed at all. No sir. So everything Mr. Breton wrote one year ago today, well August 12th, 2024, that's still in place where he said to an American running American company about an interview that was yet to happen to interview threatened this individual, none of that. Nothing in the law has changed. That would change what the actions, this individual took.

Lorcán Price:

Nothing in the law.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

That's because Mr. Breton's gone doesn't mean Ms. Virkkunen can't do this same darn thing, right?

Lorcán Price:

Precisely.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Yeah. And that's the concern Mr. Price is this statement we need to take back our country is that statement hate speech.

Lorcán Price:

We don't really know what hate speech is. It's so vague and that's the problem with it. I wouldn't regard that as hate speech.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Well you may not, but the EU regulators do because they had a workshop on May 25th where, this is part of our investigation material., we'd subpoenaed, they gave us this information and they said it is hate speech. That's a concern, right?

Lorcán Price:

Yes sir.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

And it can be made by an American and be termed hate speech and there could be some ramifications for American's First Amendment, Liberty. Is that accurate?

Lorcán Price:

Yes, sir.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Okay. Mr. Price, what's a trusted flagger?

Lorcán Price:

A trusted flagger is an NGO or a private organization that's recognized under the DSA and if they identify or a complaint has being made.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Wait, wait, wait. Recognized by who?

Lorcán Price:

Oh, the terms of the DSA Oh and the national regulators and the Commission as well.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Okay, and they do what? So they're recognized by the government. They're approved by the government.

Lorcán Price:

Yes sir.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

And what do they do ?

Lorcán Price:

If they identify content that they regard as illegal content? The companies have to give priority to removing that content.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Oh, so people that the government approves tell companies what they can allow on their platform and what they can't, right?

Lorcán Price:

That's correct sir.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

And the same people who approve these folks are the same people who conducted the workshop and said, we need to take back our country's hate speech. Is that fair to say?

Lorcán Price:

That's correct, sir.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Yeah, and that's the concern. And what happens if these trusted flaggers approved by the government, the same government that says we need to take back our country as hate speech? By the way, I think that statement is made probably more by Democrats right now than Republicans. I think the head of the Democrat National Committee made that statement like three months ago at a big Democrat rally or something they were having. So the same people say that's hate speech approved the trusted flaggers who then tell the platforms what they can't have on their platform and if they don't agree with what the trusted flaggers say, they're civil penalties. Is that right?

Lorcán Price:

Yes, sir. Both under national law and the DSA investigations begin and there's a whole process that can result in enforcement and then ultimately crippling fines for companies.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

And those crippling fines of civil penalties can be what, 5%, 10% of global revenue depending on the Online Services Act, of the DSA?

Lorcán Price:

Under the DSA, 6%.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

6%. Wow, that's a lot of money. These are big companies, right?

Lorcán Price:

Yes, sir.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Now, Mr. Farage, it's not just civil penalties though, and this is where it gets really scary because my understanding is there's criminal penalties and I think in 2023 in the United Kingdom there were 12,183 arrests for offensive post. 12,000 people arrested for things they posted online that some trusted flagger approved by the government, the same government that says what's being said at the Democrat National Committee, we need to take back our country's hate speech. That's a scary scenario. Is that right?

Nigel Farage, MP:

Yeah, they're massive statistics and I mean some of it comes under non-crime hate incidents. So you've said something on social media, someone's taken objection and you get the knock at the door from the police sort of warning you that if you do this again, something may happen and this has now been broadened out. I mean Mr. Price made the point, what is hate speech? How do you define hate speech? And that's the problem, isn't it? With all of these laws that we finish up in a position where local police forces, et cetera have to choose their own interpretations? I think again, as I said to you earlier, the timing of this hearing today is perfect because the head of the Metropolitan Police who arrested, who arrested Graham Linehan at Heathrow Airport.

He's thrown the ball back now to the British Home Secretary and the government to say, please tell us what is this law intended? What are we supposed as the police to do? So I think we're going to have a much more rapid debate about this, but my worry is it may get worse if I may quickly because the labor government now are intending to pass a law that has a definition of Islamophobia. They're intending to put that into law and that effectively will mean that criticism of a religion, mocking of a religion would become an offense. And that's totally against everything because we've always given the Pope a hard time. We've always given the archbishop we can to bring a hard time. So we're finishing up with two tier law ...

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Yeah.

Nigel Farage, MP:

Two tier justice and that's very concerning.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

I had one other question I'd like to get from maybe you and Mr. Price if I could. Speaking of religion, tell me what performative prayer is. This is something we've seen in what we've discovered in our investigative work. Maybe we'll start Mr. Price, then go to Mr. Farage.

Lorcán Price:

Yes sir. We have a client at the moment who's been prosecuted in or who is arrested in Bristol for a Christian pastor preaching about the differences between Christianity and Islam. He was then assaulted by a group of people identifying in Islamic as Islamic people. The police arrived and they arrested him, not the people who assaulted him. This is the state of play in the United Kingdom in terms of free speech and unfortunately across Europe. I mean I have a whole file of cases here where people have been arrested for criticisms of Islam where they've been prosecuted, so things are getting pretty bad.

Nigel Farage, MP:

Yeah, that extends too to abortion clinics, doesn't it? And the abortion debate in Britain and Europe is different to the abortion debate in America. It is in a different place, but we have seen people warned or arrested if they've been seen to be preying outside abortion clinics, even if they're doing it silently. Hence it's performative in the sense they're doing that. And I'm afraid you now have to be a certain distance away from one of these clinics. But if other members of the public object and say that you are praying there is causing them psychological harm, well the police may intervene.

David Kaye:

Thank you, chairman. May I comment on one of these issues very briefly?

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

I'm fine if the Ranking Member... Okay. I may have to ask you a question after you comment when you do that. Go ahead.

David Kaye:

I realize I'm opening the door. I just wanted to note on this question of what is hate speech? First off the question of identifying hate speech is not something that happens in a vacuum in the UK. In Europe there are very strict rules around the definition of hate speech that connected not merely to speech but to incitement. So it's incitement to violence or hatred, hatred or discrimination. And I think that's just an important baseline point that this isn't just about pure speech, it's about the kind of speech that might lead to violence. And related to that, when you mentioned this hypothetical of take back our country and is that hate speech, my understanding is that that came up in the context of a hypothetical related to persistent harassment of a Muslim girl and that was the hypothetical. And the question was in that particular context, did that constitute a kind of incitement to some violence against this young girl? So I think it's important to put some of these kinds of abstract questions into that kind of context.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Professor, did you agree with the Biden administration when they established the disinformation governance board?

David Kaye:

I didn't take a position on that. I do think that disinformation is an issue that ...

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

The government should be deciding what we can say and what we can.

David Kaye:

Absolutely not.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Okay, well that's good to know. I'll give the Ranking Member a little extra time if he so desired. With that, I'll recognize the gentleman from Tennessee.

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-09):

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And firstly, I was pleased to join on the Del. It was a very fine CODEL, I appreciate the chair, my friend and my classmate from 2006. One of the things I found most heartening about the ell, we had a tour of parliament and along with us were two conservative members who were, I think they were either House of Lords, maybe one was in the Lords and one was in the House of Commons. But they talked to us about Magna Carta and about how it's the basis of our laws and there was a copy there and copies here and there and whatever, but how precious the Magna Carta is, and they suggested to us that a legislator, this was in the House of Lords where we spoke that a legislator is not somebody who votes. A legislator's job is not just to vote, A legislator's job is to stand up to an out of control executive, very telling for tell British Parliament members to instruct us on what we should be doing.

And I thank him for that. I'm a strong supporter of free speech and always have been, but I find this hearing a bit disingenuous because the problems we have here in America, free speech includes the speech of those whom we disagree, people who say vowel things and from my case they say, I find racist and antisemitic and Islamophobic type speech. That's something I find vowel, but it's protected by free speech and offensive speech as well. That does not mean that there aren't limitations, however, and speech can be harmful, dangerous, and infringement on other people's rights. It isn't a free for all though, and the US in our First Amendment does not have a monopoly on what constitutes free speech. There is speech protected by the First Amendment, like corporate political donations, which I think is misplaced and misapplied. And there are times when our legal system itself suppresses DISD speech.

I passed the Speech Act in the 111th Congress. I think Mr. Issa was my co-sponsor, and it dealt with the fact that Britain is a favored nation for defamation actions and it's easy to get a defamation judgment there. We would not allow those judgments to be recognized here in our country under the Speech Act if the activities that took place did not conform to our laws on free speech. And I would think Mr. Farage could try to look at changing their laws on defamation and contour more to what we see in the First Amendment, and that might be good for the people in England. Two of my good friends, most revered friends were from England, London, Christopher Hitchens and Sir Bill Browder, and they've written books and they could be subject to such laws as well, but work on protecting your English authors who from Shakespeare on, they've been pretty good.

We used to be bipartisan in these efforts to look out for free speech, but President Trump has taken on free speech in ways that would never have been thought about, and I think Ms. Lofgren brought some points to Professor Kaye. And it's not just laws, it's autocratic actions as well. President Trump, as Mr. Dalio said clearly, but so many other people have said it and felt it is bringing us on the verge of a autocratic state and his actions in trying to bring law firms to their knees, colleges to their needs, federal employees, students, et cetera, is anti-free speech, anti opportunity and fear for themselves and their futures if they speak out. Even congresspeople could be subject in the future, I'm sure with some of the ways we're seeing this Justice Department act with questions about their speech.

Our president has sued every broadcasting company almost and they've gone after CNN, they've gone after NBC and they pick some of these fringe people to pick on the Ukrainian president about his attire. It's bizarre what's going on in our country and I'm concerned they try to silence and shake down those who don't conform to whatever the president thinks. We need to understand that his review of the Smithsonian exhibits and other African-American museum and saying there was too much emphasis on how bad slavery was. I don't know how you could find anything good about slavery and Edwin Starr, who's a singer would tell you slavery like war. There's absolutely nothing good about it, so we shouldn't be trying to. Professor Kaye, how would you compare from your expertise, how we evaluate and compare with relative states of freedom of expression written in the United States? Where do you see the comparisons?

David Kaye:

Well, I think right now we're at a very dismal place in the United States, but I do think that it's also worth thinking a bit about some of the issues that Mr. Farage raised. So for example, he mentioned the issue of a law against Islamophobia, but there's also a lot of discussion about laws against antisemitism and against other attacks on people on their status, on the basis of their religion and so forth. Those are actually valuable conversations to have, but you can't just sort of pick and choose which censorship or which restrictions are okay and which are not. You really need to have a general view as to what's appropriate. And I think again, the chairman's point about censorship being a focus on criticism is the appropriate one and to the extent that we can make that comparison, which country is really doing more or which countries are really doing more to tamp down to silence critics, that's the harm to our democracy. And right now I see that more in the United States than I see in Europe or I'm the gentleman the UK.

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-09):

I'm the gentleman and I'd just like to say to you, welcome. I have a lot of British friends and respect for Britain. I have a great time when I'm there, but I'm happy we won the war.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Gentlemen yields back, gentlemen from Arizona is recognized.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ):

Thank you Mr. Chairman. You know the statement that Trump is bringing us to the edge of being an autocratic state in and of itself disproves the premise of that statement. Think about that. It's absurd. Under the First amendment, the general proposition is that government should not be regulating the content of its citizen speech. You have the opposing idea that it's the responsibility of government to decide not only what its citizens should think, but what content they're allowed to see and engage with To sum the reality of the government regulation of speech may sound like it's a distant authoritarian notion that it won't come to the United States of America, but I would ask you to just think back again. I'm reminded of Orwell's 1984, think of the memory that people are trying to memory hole right now. Some even on this panel, sir, who don't want you to realize how bad a government can be when it attempts to censor right here in the United States. For instance, president Obama, this is from an article I'd asked unanimous consent. President Obama has been the most aggressive administration in history, not only going after whistleblowers, but after pursuing reporters who write their stories. How about this one, the Biden legacy? How about this whole stack, and I'll put these in just a second, is convenient to memory hole what the Biden administration did, what they did to suppress dissent and contrary opinion. I'll get into that in a second.

The actions of European government show that the type of censorship by government is not only possible but very much doable Under the guise of public safety, government officials in Europe have suppressed and arrested individuals who have simply engaged in political speech that is arbitrarily deemed to be unspeakable by the government. This kind of regime doesn't just appear on the scene though it takes time to develop and we've seen it here and that's why I'm taking this opportunity to remind you that FISA must be reformed. FISA must be reformed. So Mr. Price, you alluded to this, and so I have this document right here that compares the GDP growth of EU versus the US 1998 to 2023, and the US has grown about 87%, almost 90%. The EU has increased this GDP by about 13%. So you have almost a 6X variable there. The question is, when you set these kind of draconian fines and you set up a system that is amorphous and almost indefinable, might it not also have some more than just even the safety, ostensible safety of the society, might it lead to trying to regulate when you can't innovate?

Lorcán Price:

I think that's very much the case, sir. We've seen it not just in the area of speech, but obviously as we were discussing the digital markets act, data protection and so on, and Europe is facing some very serious structural problems demographically, financially, and a lot of what I think is inspiring the DSA is what we saw from Germany beginning after the election of President Trump and after Brexit, which is to control the narrative slowdown speech and into that then they're throwing a very wide net out that's affecting all kinds of legitimate speech. We talked about my client Pave Nan in Finland who's prosecuted for sharing a tweet from the Bible. It's absolutely outrageous and that becomes now the standard that the DSA will set not just for Europe, but possibly and predictably globally.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ):

And similarly, Mr. Reed, that's what's going to happen to your app innovators. They're not going to be able to have access to 440 million people in a marketplace in Europe without having to go through essentially government censorship.

Morgan Reed:

Well, I think you hit it earlier when you said that their focus has been on regulating or adding legislation and it isn't one piece of regulation or one piece of legislation that has caused problems for our innovators both in the UK, in the eu and in America. It's been the stacking effect because if you start with one regulation, you say, I can handle that. I'll build that into my business. It's when you have one, then two, then four, then six. So what's been the biggest problem for growth has been their answer is that old quip, the beatings will continue until morale improves. We often feel that way about regulation. Innovation will get regulated until we get more innovation and I don't think that will work out.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ):

Thanks, Mr. Reed. Now I'll finish with you Mr. Farage. What happened to the great countries of the West? I mean seriously and their liberal understanding of civil rights and the ability to speak one's mind openly without fear of arrest or censorship or abuse of harassment by the government.

Nigel Farage, MP:

I think what went wrong in many ways is we forgot why we actually had those liberties and had those freedoms in the first place. We forgot that. As I mentioned and touched on earlier, we forgot the huge sacrifices that were made by citizens alive at that time to defend those principles against tyranny and against dictatorship. We've lost our way in understanding why we are as we are, and I think that has permeated through the education system or I'm not sure we've been teaching good values. The slavery comment was made earlier. I completely understand there's nothing good about slavery, but take our country. We spent decades driving slavery off the high seas. So whilst we were perpetrators to begin with, we actually in the end drove it off the high seas. So we need to teach our kids a sense of balance about our history, about the sacrifice that's been made. That's my feeling.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ):

Mr. Chairman, I have some unanimous consent. Gentlemen, recognize this one "GDP growth comparison to EU to US 1998 to 2023." This one, "Biden's Press Freedom Legacy, Empty Words and Hypocrisy, massive government censorship during and about COVID," from the new Civil Liberties Alliance. The Fifth Circuit agrees that federal officials unconstitutionally, coerced or encouraged online censorship under the Biden administration. This one, 'Information during the pandemic suppressed feds blew $267 million fighting misinformation under Biden as Trump vowed to ban censorship cartel.' This one, 'How the FBI violated the privacy rights of tens of thousands of Americans. This one, 'Inspector General report on FBI's F abuse tells us one thing we need radical reform.' This one, 'UK comedy writer Graham Linehan arrested over social media posts criticizing trans activists.' 'Why did Lucy Connelly receive a 31 month sentence for Southport Tweet,' 'Policing thought crime should have no place in the UK written's emerging police state, knock, knock. It's the thought police as thousands of criminals go. Uninvestigated detectives call on a grandmother her crime. She went on Facebook to criticize labor counselors. This one, 'UK steps up Free speech crackdown,' 'Armed police arrest comedy writer Graham Linehan at Heathrow Airport' and this one 'Britain's New Thought Police, how Labor plans to police your online speech.' Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Without objection

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-09):

Mr. Chair, I'd like to offer two unanimous consent requests. I'm not going to challenge the forest as much as the gentleman and others, but two that records letters to you, one to you and one to Commissioner Virkkunen, pushing back on the framing of this hearing from 30 EU and US academics.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Thank you. Without objection, gentlemen from Georgia's recognized.

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

Thank you Mr. Chairman. Mr. Farage, welcome to the United States of America. This isn't your first time here, correct?

Nigel Farage, MP:

Correct.

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

You were here in 2024 in Milwaukee, weren't you?

Nigel Farage, MP:

I've been coming here since 1982. On a very regular basis. I worked for American companies....

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

What purpose were you coming to Milwaukee for? Why did you come to Milwaukee?

Nigel Farage, MP:

I mean in Milwaukee many times. I think that particular event was for the onvention.

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

The convention, the Republican convention.

Nigel Farage, MP:

I think that's right. I think you are right.

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

The Trump Convention.

Nigel Farage, MP:

I think you are right. Very good.

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

Where Trump was coronated.

Nigel Farage, MP:

Well he won, didn't he? I mean, yes.

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

He had already won. We already knew who had won.

Nigel Farage, MP:

It's called political parties.

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

It was his coronation. And you attended, and you also attended Trump rallies. Correct?

Nigel Farage, MP:

I've attended lots of Trump rallies.

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

Make America Great Again rallies.

Nigel Farage, MP:

Many of them. Yes, upbeat, optimistic, happy, wonderful, joyous event.

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

And you publicly endorsed his, uh....

Nigel Farage, MP:

Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed them. I've even spoken at a couple.

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

You endorsed him for president and you attended his election night watch party.

Nigel Farage, MP:

I did.

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

And you consider Trump to be your mentor, correct?

Nigel Farage, MP:

No.

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

He's not your mentor.

Nigel Farage, MP:

No. Sorry.

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

He is somebody who you want the support of and you have the support.

Nigel Farage, MP:

Yes, I do. I think he's a very, very brave man.... his view of the world.

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

Because you are getting ready to run for Prime Minister of Great Britain, correct?

Nigel Farage, MP:

Oh, I've been trying for years. Yeah.

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

And as it stands right now, you head up a party, how many seats in the parliament are there?

Nigel Farage, MP:

651. 600. If you include the speaker that is.

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

650, and how many are a part, how many seats does your party hold?

Nigel Farage, MP:

How many seats did the opinion poll say we're going to get next time? Is that your question?

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

No, I mean,

Nigel Farage, MP:

Oh, I see.

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

The numbers don't lie. You only have four seats, right? I'm afraid so. Yes. And so you are indeed the leader of a fringe party. Oh, I'm a fringe, right? Don't worry about that. Yes, absolutely. Everything I've ever done and as a fringe party leader seeking to run for Prime Minister of Great Britain, you need a lot of money in order to blow up like the MAGA movement has blown up.

Nigel Farage, MP:

What you need is a message of truth and a message of hope and ...

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

Well you need money also, right?

Nigel Farage, MP:

Money's helpful, but it's not the primary thing you need. No, no, you're wrong.

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

The first thing that came out of the chair's mouth this morning during his opening statement had to do with Elon Musk and you're carrying water for Elon Musk today, aren't you?

Nigel Farage, MP:

From what I can see, Elon Musk is abusive about me virtually every single week, but it's a free country.

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

But you never stopped trying to ingratiate yourself with him wrong. Well, I mean no wrong. You are familiar with the fact they're wrong. You are familiar with the fact Mr. Farage?

Nigel Farage, MP:

I had a public fallout with Elon Musk.

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

That Donald Trump's campaign benefited to the extent of 250 million from Elon Musk.

Nigel Farage, MP:

Well, I mean how much did ...

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

Are familiar with that?

Nigel Farage, MP:

How much did Mr. Zuckerberg give to the Democrats? I mean, this is what happens and people are...

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

He didn't give any money to the Democrats.

Nigel Farage, MP:

On Musk, let me be clear, I have had...

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

He was sitting behind Trump with the rest of the tech bros and you are here today.

Nigel Farage, MP:

I'm going to answer your question ....

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

Impress all of those tech bros, including non as you and correct.

Nigel Farage, MP:

I'm going to answer your question very, very honestly.

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

You need money from Elon Musk in order to get elected Prime Minister of Great Britain. That's the bottom line we consider. Isn't that correct?

Nigel Farage, MP:

We consider all day as long as the chairman allows us. I don't mind. I had a very public falling out with Elon Musk earlier in the year.

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

But you're still trying to get some money from him. No?

Nigel Farage, MP:

Over a political issue.

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

It's not about the prior dispute. I'm sorry. You're trying to ingratiate yourself with the tech bros by coming over here and trying

Nigel Farage, MP:

Can I get a cup of coffee or something whilst he goes on. Could be here a long time.

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

What you're arguing is that the citizens of Great Britain should pay a tariff if these tech companies are not allowed to violate the laws of Great Britain.

Nigel Farage, MP:

No, I'm not. That was a falsehood put out by the British Prime ministers today.

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

You didn't say in your statement...

Nigel Farage, MP:

At prime minister's questions. I have never I have never suggested any of the time.

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

In your statement you don't call tariffs as tools to force Great Britain...

Nigel Farage, MP:

My statement is pretty clear, my statement, it might surprise you.

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

You are not calling for ...

Nigel Farage, MP:

It might surprise you to know...

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

Tariffs and trade sanctions.

Nigel Farage, MP:

The trade that, no, that trade. You may not know this, but trade between our countries is actually rather important. You are the biggest investor in our country and we're the biggest investor in yours.

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

What you've done is come over here...

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

The gentleman from Georgia has expired, but the gentleman should be able to say some kind of response.

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

What you've done is come here to the United States to argue that your citizens should ....

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ):

Regular order, Mr. Chairman. He has been rude. He's been disgusting. He's been hilarious.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Hang on, hang on. The gentleman's time has expired. I feel like we should give Mr. Farage a chance to respond to one of the many questions he was not allowed to respond to. So we'll give you 30 seconds Mr. Farage, and then we'll move on to our next one. I know Mr. Farage does have to leave in about an hour, so we want to get through as many members as we can.

Nigel Farage, MP:

Number one, I had a public fallout over a politically astute with Elon Musk. I can't be bullied by anybody. I haven't changed my mind. Last time I looked he was being spectacularly rude about me yesterday. That's life. If we believe in free speech, we live with it. What I have made very clear

Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson:

On...

Nigel Farage, MP:

So this is my turn, I think.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Yeah, you got another 15 seconds.

Nigel Farage, MP:

What I've made perfectly clear in this paper is the situation we've got with successive pieces of legislation, including now. The Online Safety Act is a danger to trade between our countries and allies and friends and trading partners have honest conversations with each other. I hope many American companies and politicians have honest conversations with the British government. We've done it. I've not suggested sanctions at all in any way.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Good luck on your race. The gentleman from California is recognized.

Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First I'd remind my colleague from Georgia that President Trump was openly nominated after decisively winning the primary votes across the country. That's an open contrast to the Democratic nominee who is decreed the nominee of her party in spite of the fact she did not receive a single primary vote. So I would be a little careful if I were him about talking about coronations. I do agree with my democratic colleagues that we need to be on guard against suppression of free speech, whether it's coming from the left or the right, but I disagree with them that the chief executive regulating the executive branch's communications or conforming executive agencies and grantees to executive policy is somehow a threat to free speech. The executive branch is designed to speak with one voice, a voice chosen every four years by the people, and I disagree with them that suing for defamation is an infringement on speech in a legal system where the truth is an absolute defense.

The threat to democracy is from the government regulating other people's communications. Now, we're now discovering that the Biden administration used the FBI to pressure tech companies to CSU the communications of American people. Over a free discussion of everything from COVID policy and origins, the Russian collusion hoax, Biden family influence peddling climate change. I myself was the victim of this censorship when I warned of the damage that the COVID lockdowns were causing. Now, democracy assumes that the best way to separate truth from lies or wisdom from folly or good from evil or love from hate is to place the two of them side by side and then trust the common sense and good judgment of the people to know the difference. But this assumes that the people have full and unfettered freedom to express themselves and to challenge the claims and opinions of each other. Now, some of our colleagues seem to be suggesting that we should transfer that prerogative from the people to the government. That's the very definition of authoritarianism. Mr. Farage, what are your thoughts?

Nigel Farage, MP:

Yeah, I agree with that. I think we are, as citizens, we should be free to make our minds up, to express our opinions to a large extent, to make our own mistakes provided, and we all know there's a limit to free speech. The professor talked about incitement earlier and of course we would be absolutely joined to together on that. We don't want incitement. We don't accept incitement and if people put out something irrational or insightful, but very quickly put their hands up and apologize and learn their lesson. That's kind of how the world is. I do not want government to be the arbiter of what I should think.

Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA):

We have a word for that. It's the demos kratos, rule by the people. Democracy.

Nigel Farage, MP:

I'm with you on that. I also agree with you, but COVID, I touched on this earlier. It was during COVID when rational debate about many important issues be it mask wearing, be it lockdowns, rational debate on these things was frankly stamped out and this was supported by big social media companies. Many not GB News obviously, but many TV stations, et cetera. It's a very dark period that we're coming out of....

Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA):

in this country. What we're discovering is that was being done under pressure by the FBI directed by the executive branch of the government under Joe Biden. But just briefly, how did this happen to the UK and the EU and what lessons should we be drawing here today?

Nigel Farage, MP:

Well, we joined the EU half a century ago, or the EEC as it was then called. It was a huge mistake in my opinion. We forgot about common law, the kind of law that you guys have always enjoyed too. We sort of gradually transferred to a European way of thinking. We incorporated a human rights act, which kind of meant really that as opposed to being born free under a human rights regime, the state gives you your rights, which you're supposed to be incredibly grateful, but they can take 'em away whenever they like. So we lost our bearings. The UK lost its way. It became obsessed about doing things the European way, countries, frankly, that don't have that history of liberty, freedom, and democracy that we do.

Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA):

Finally, what do you see as the shape of things to come? Are we going to regain these freedoms or lose them?

Nigel Farage, MP:

Well, ultimately the people have to get what they vote for and one of the reasons that we are seeing an extraordinary political revolution that is happening in parts of Europe, and if you believe the polls, what is happening in the United Kingdom right now is we want a government that comes in and gets rid, gets rid of all these laws and starts again and starts on the basis. Yes, we want to try and protect kids and we will do whatever we can that is practical to protect kids from serious harm online, but we will get back to the idea that I could insult you. You could insult me, Mr. Raskin and I can have our chats, but we do it in a spirit that's not inciteful and in a way that honors those who built our great countries. Thank you.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Thank you, gentlemen yields back. Well done. The gentleman from Washington is recognized.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (R-WA):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It wasn't too long ago that Democrats and Republicans on this committee together agreed to undertake a 16 month investigation into the anti-competitive practices of Big Tech companies. I represent many of them in Seattle and proposed bipartisan legislation which actually passed this committee to restore fairness and competition for consumers and small businesses that included the American Choice and Innovation Online Act or ACOIA, which included similar common sense structural solutions to what the EU included in the Digital Markets Act, and it was a real recognition that these Big Tech companies are squelching competition and innovation and that hurts consumers. It's a big turnaround then that suddenly the Republican majority wants to do something as absurd as use trade negotiations to help bolster Big Tech in Europe when EU has undertaken the very smart solutions that fight back against Big Tech monopolies and protect consumers and small businesses, maybe it's linked to the fact that these Big Tech companies are now pouring money into Donald Trump's campaign funds.

I don't know, maybe it's because they're making all kinds of deals to screw consumers and preference giant corporations in exchange for campaign contributions and a 24 karat gold plaque to Donald Trump like the CEO of Apple just recently did. It seems to me that the Republican party has suddenly turned its back on small businesses, on competition, on innovation, and yes, even on free speech, which is apparently the topic of discussion today. In fact, one of our witnesses here claims one of the Republican witnesses claims to represent small and medium-sized app developers, but his organization gets more than half of its funding from Apple, the very giant corporation that those same small and medium-sized app developers are trying to fight. Make it make sense for me. Now we have this hearing centered around so-called free speech and so-called censorship, not here in America, but in Europe. Well, what about right here at home on US soil, the censorship by the Trump administration, the Republican party on anything that they don't agree with.

Let's just take a recent example. Rümeysa Öztürk, a PhD student at Tufts University wrote an op-ed in the student newspaper calling for the university to divest from Israel. It was a simple exercise of her first amendment, free speech rights. She committed no crime. She didn't bully or harass anyone. She didn't incite violence towards anyone. Action was totally peaceful, and yet what happened in March, the Trump administration revoked her student visa, sent masked men to kidnap and disappear her, forcing her into an unmarked car and detained her for 45 days. Professor Kaye. How does this kind of abuse utilizing the immigration system in this case for now, for now can extend to US citizens, to green card holders to anyone else? How does this hinder the free speech rights of all Americans?

David Kaye:

Well, we've seen already that American citizens have been caught in the enforcement of immigration laws over the last and outside of the immigration laws over the last several months, but I think we can look at it from two perspectives. I mean, one is it's a clear violation of a student's free speech, right as you just explained it, when they're detained and set up for deportation solely because of an op-ed that they wrote, but it's also an intimidation for anybody who would write anything further. Anybody who's in that same kind of visa situation now is not going to be writing that op-ed and that's not just a harm to them. That's not just chilling their speech. That's also a harm to all of us who would benefit from hearing those kinds of views.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (R-WA):

In fact, right now, the Trump administration is reviewing all social media of visa applicants to see if they've posted any anti-Trump or pro-Palestinian sentiments. How does that affect our free speech rights?

David Kaye:

Well, it's the same answer. It's a deterioration of our public debate in this country. It's exactly this kind of, I think that Mr. McClintock had said before, putting side by side different ideas, and that's an interference with that

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (R-WA):

So quickly. Another example, in June, a Spanish language reporter named Mario Guevara was live streaming gathering of Americans protesting against Trump's immigration policy. The police arrested him on bogus misdemeanor charges that were later dropped. A few days later, he was detained by ICE. Now we've got a government that arrests a student for writing an op-ed filters, a speech of visitors and arrests, the journalists for covering a protest. How does that compare to free speech practices of other countries?

David Kaye:

Well, it does compare with authoritarians who regularly use law enforcement in order to transform journalism into a crime. This is a major global censorship problem, and we're seeing it in Georgia and we see it in this context that is not just a one-off. It's part of, I think, a systemic approach to a free media in this country. That's one, and perhaps the harshest example, because I understand that the journalist remains in detention, but it's part of a systemic approach. I think, to speech.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (R-WA):

Similar to Russia and China, places like that. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. I have some unanimous consent requests.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Do you want to go now or do you?

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (R-WA):

Yeah.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Alright, go ahead. Thank you.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (R-WA):

I asked for unanimous consent to enter into the record a letter from the Open Markets Institute.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Without objection.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (R-WA):

Another one, A letter from the Tech Freedom association raising concerns with the FTCs inquiry on censorship.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Without objection.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (R-WA):

And a final one from the, I think it's the App Association and it's titled Apple is top funder of lobby group that says it represents small developers.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Without objection.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (R-WA):

I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman, I have one more here.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Okay, go right ahead.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (R-WA):

This is an article entitled 'The False Choice Between Digital Regulation and Innovation.'

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Without objection.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (R-WA):

Thank you. I yield back quickly.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Mr. Reed are are, is your association fighting Apple? Pardon me? Is your association fighting Apple?

Morgan Reed:

Fight Apple?

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Fighting Apple.

Morgan Reed:

We disagree with Apple on multiple issues as well as for all of our sponsors. Our membership is the small businesses that many of you have met when we've had our fly in every year. Okay, great. It seems to me.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Your association uses Apple. That's where your apps go. I don't think you're fighting Apple. The gentleman from Wisconsin is recognized for five minutes.

Rep. Timothy Tiffany (R-WI):

Professor Kaye was the Centers for Disease Control. Correct. In 2020 about the handling of COVID, the chairman laid out all the things that we now know are debunked was the Center for Disease Control, correct. In how they went about their business.

David Kaye:

I am not a scientist, so I can't speak to that. I mean, I remember the time. We all did a time of great fear...

Rep. Timothy Tiffany (R-WI):

Shutting down, happening down schools, things like that, that have set kids behind. See, because it's to Representative McClintock point that wouldn't this administration want to change Some people that you talked about that are in the Department of Health Services, shouldn't they change them if they were wrong about really the seminal issue that has come before this generation? Shouldn't they change those people?

David Kaye:

Well, that's just not my understanding of why people have been too.

Rep. Timothy Tiffany (R-WI):

Are you familiar with Professor Kaye with the case Berenson versus Biden, which is a censorship case where Alex Berenson, a reporter, was deplatformed on Twitter?

David Kaye:

I'm not familiar with that one.

Rep. Timothy Tiffany (R-WI):

I would suggest that you take a look at that because the Biden administration weaponized themselves against Mr. Berenson and stifled his speech on Twitter. What college are you at a professor at again?

David Kaye:

University of California Irvine.

Rep. Timothy Tiffany (R-WI):

How many classes are you teaching this semester?

David Kaye:

This I teach one class right now.

Rep. Timothy Tiffany (R-WI):

One class this semester. Mr. Farage, I want to thank you so much for coming to the great state of Wisconsin, of which I represent part of it, including Milwaukee. I hope you had a good time there.

Nigel Farage, MP:

I've always had a good time in Milwaukee. No question. Wonderful breweries friendly people. Love it.

Rep. Timothy Tiffany (R-WI):

You're welcome back anytime. I want to thank the ranking member for giving us a tutorial on free speech. Mr. Farage, did you instruct anyone on this panel, including the chairman, to instruct us to stifle the ranking speech? Did you? No, absolutely not. Of course not. Can you comment on the key issue before the far right that we heard about earlier? What is that key issue in Europe right now? That the far right is heavily engaged in?

Nigel Farage, MP:

Well, if you are in the United, I'll speak for the United Kingdom. If you are opposed to illegal immigration on a mass scale and the huge cost of a taxpayer and the risk to our communities, then apparent, oh, and if you like the flag, our national flag, then apparently you are far right.

Rep. Timothy Tiffany (R-WI):

So that illegal immigration issue that was very informative to the election in 2024 in America, the same thing is happening in Europe. Is that accurate?

Nigel Farage, MP:

It's a very similar argument in many, many ways and therefore the definition of far right I think now applies to about two thirds of the British population.

Rep. Timothy Tiffany (R-WI):

So I think about someone who's very famous from your country, Ms. JK Rowling, who wrote one of the finest series of books, the Harry Potter series that has ever been in print, who I believe is self-defined as a liberal, as we call them in America. Hasn't she even been threatened for a position she's taken in regards to transgenderism?

Nigel Farage, MP:

Yes. She very much comes from a liberal wing of politics historically, but she's taken a view that women should be safe in women's spaces. That means changing rooms, et cetera. That's all she said, and by the way, that's something that our Supreme Court recently actually did back up the fact that there are fundamental differences, and this is not to launch an attack on anyone that's trans, just to bring some common sense in, and she has faced cancel culture and abuse on a huge scale.

Rep. Timothy Tiffany (R-WI):

I would just one other comment in regards to the ranking member's opening statement. He was saying that we are stifling speech here in America, including PBS by defunding them. I would suggest that the ranking member look at the news that came out in the past week. It is very good news for PBS where the Ford Foundation and other foundations have said they're going to put in tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars to make sure that they stay on the air protecting the American taxpayer. I think that is a great thing that we were able to do with the one big beautiful Bill. Final question for Mr. Price. How is the problem going to be fixed and can America help?

Lorcán Price:

Yes, America can help the light that the spotlight that has already been shone on the problem by the administration, by the amazing work that this committee is doing here is hugely welcomed by those of us who support the human right to free speech. We have people who are suffering under prosecutions, unjust prosecutions in Europe right now. I've outlined a lot of them in my written submissions, and it's only because of the support that's coming from this side of the Atlantic that we're able to see possible a future.

Rep. Timothy Tiffany (R-WI):

And we will continue those efforts. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Gentleman from Maryland is recognized.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When I was a professor of constitutional law, I used to teach my students that freedom of speech is like an apple and everybody wants to take just one bite out of the apple. Somebody doesn't like left wing speech. There's a bite. Somebody doesn't like right wing speech. Somebody doesn't like feminist speech, somebody doesn't like sexist speech and everybody just wants to take one bite. But if we let everybody take a bite at the end of the day there's no apple left. It's all gone. So if you want to defend free speech and you want a society that's defined by free speech, you've got to accept even the speech. You oppose the speech that you a bore. Now, Professor Kaye, we want to try to bring some objectivity to the conversation. I looked up the reporters without Borders rankings of every country in the world. According to press freedom, Norway was number one. North Korea was number 179. It's like a totalitarian dungeon. The UK was number 20. The US was number 57 under Trump down from 45 where it was before Russia, which some people here lionize was at 171. Right. So if we were going to undertake a serious study of the state of press freedom all over the world, for example, where should our focus be?

David Kaye:

I appreciate that question. I have a very long list that I could highlight,

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

But just tell us methodologically quickly how we should go about doing it if we wanted to undertake this in a serious way.

David Kaye:

Absolutely. I mean, I would really use the lens of what do we need as a democracy in order to be well-informed, in order to make choices about our democracy, to make choices about our health, what do we need? We need an open press, we need open government. We need access. We absolutely don't want to see websites scrubbed as this administration has done, so I would look at it through that lens, through the lens of what we need in order to have a democracy.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Gotcha. Mr. Farage, first of all, to be called charming by you. A man of your evident addition and dazzling brilliance is undoubtedly a lifetime achievement award for me. I will hold it closely, but I wanted to ask you about your commitment to the freedom of speech universally. I think it's a principle that you advocate for everyone, not just for people who are in your party or people you agree with. You said that there should not have been a protest against the Gaza War in the UK, and then when it went ahead, the police refused to shut it down. You called them gutless for not shutting it down. Do you regret having opposed that given that there was no violence there and there were 700,000 people who wanted to express themselves that day?

Nigel Farage, MP:

I have not opposed people standing up and protesting in favor of people living in Gaza at all. There was one particular day, and it was the Sunday nearest November the 11th, which was when we had big memorial services in London, and I think a march being allowed to go ahead on that day would've been a mistake any other day. Fine.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Oh, I see. Who gets to decide that?

Nigel Farage, MP:

Well, I think actually something that is embedded in the country, something that is absolutely fundamental debate.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

That's why we have a written constitution. You might take that idea back to the UK with you because the freedom of speech applies 365 days a year here under the First Amendment, not 364, 360 3, depending on some politicians heckling the government and telling 'em to shut down

Nigel Farage, MP:

Free speech. We have allowed mass pro-Gaza demonstrations in London weekend after weekend.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

No thanks to you after let, this was one particularly sensitive day, that's all.

Nigel Farage, MP:

Let me try another one.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

I got you. It was a sensitive day, and I thought that's what the freedom of speech was about. You have a right to engage in speech that other people consider offensive or insensitive, but in any event.

Nigel Farage, MP:

Every right to do it.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

You've made yourself clear, Mr. Farage.

Nigel Farage, MP:

They can it through 364 days a year if they want. Not on that day.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

You've made yourself clear to your constituents in Claxton today. Let me ask you this. You've banned journalists from your political events that you disagree with, haven't you?

Nigel Farage, MP:

No. In fact, I'm the only political ...

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Really. At your convention, you didn't ban journalists and revoke their credentials?

Nigel Farage, MP:

I take the average press conference. I take 25 questions.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

No, no, that wasn't my question. Mr. Farage. We're politicians, so we see what you're doing. I'm asking you a direct question.

Nigel Farage, MP:

Well, thank you. I'm very pleased you do.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

I'm asking you a direct question and I hope you can answer it. Why do you ban journalists who oppose your views from coming to your events? Why did you tell your party, why did you tell the local government not to do interviews with your local newspaper?

Nigel Farage, MP:

I am the most open person to any journalist.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Undoubtedly, you're the handsomest man in the world, but I'm asking you a different question every day. That's not my question. My question for you is, and it's legit, why do you ban journalists that you disagree with from your political events, like from your convention?

Nigel Farage, MP:

I don't.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Okay, and you say you've never done that?

Nigel Farage, MP:

I can't think if I go back the last 25 years, I can't think of banning anybody, but I mean, maybe somebody else did, but look, I see it was somebody else who did it. The point I take more questions. Do you have any object, other add up together?

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Okay, Mr. Price, let me ask you, you're an honest man. Do you have any objection to the things you've heard about what Donald Trump is doing in the United States of America? Going after law firms, for example, banning them from federal buildings and federal courthouses, stripping them of security clearance saying they can never get federal jobs or contracts because he doesn't like something one of the lawyers at the firm did. Do you think there's a First Amendment problem with that, as our courts have found.

Lorcán Price:

There's a lot of information you've put into that it's good to talk to you again after London. Have you followed that at all? I haven't. I have to be perfectly honest with you now.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Okay. Do you have any problems with anything Donald Trump has done with respect to free speech and freedom of expression in America, or you just haven't followed it?

Lorcán Price:

Not as well. There are plenty of people here that are informed on American matters than I.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

And we are. So thank you very much. And Mr. Chairman, thank you for your indulgence. I yield back.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

I think the gentlemen, my guess is Mr. Farage takes press questions probably as often as President Trump does. These are two guys who aren't afraid to talk to the press and take any question that comes to 'em. We've seen that display time and time again. The gentleman from California, Mr. Kiley is recognized.

Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And it was an honor to be with you and the ranking member as we had the chance to see firsthand what's going on in the eu, EU in the UK. Maybe this Raskin-Farage show could become a recurring event. It's gotten very interesting on both occasions, but I'd actually like to direct my questions to you, Mr. Price at first. It's good to see you again. I think that those of us on the trip were really alarmed by the ways in which the tide is turning against free speech in the UK and the eu. And I think that there actually was quite a bit of bipartisan agreement among the members of our delegation on a number of these issues. So I was hoping you could give us a little context of what you think explains this. And I think that we understand that not every country has a First amendment or needs to have the exact same standards or the exact same exceptions or the exact same ways that the law is applied.

But we've always, I think, felt it important that we have an alliance with our European allies around the issues of freedom that stands in contrast to authoritarian regimes around the world, like in Russia, like in China, places where they don't have free speech. And so to the extent that these values are fraying among our allies, then it really harms our ability to stand up for the values of freedom around the world. So what do you think is going on? How can we sort of strengthen our alliance with our European allies around the issue of freedom of speech?

Lorcán Price:

Thank you, sir. Well, what we've seen sadly over many decades, and it's accelerating, has been a consistent use of over-broad, vague laws to crack down on speech that's regarded as provocative or unorthodox. And I can give you, and I have given examples of the clients that I'm involved in representing where they've been simply speaking about their faith publicly or where they've been offering to talk to people. So things have reached a crisis point though, and this is why I think it's important that Vice President Vance and the administration has intervened. And one thing I would say without divulging any contents of conversations, but representative Raskin and I had quite a good conversation about just how bad things had become in Europe. And I agree with you. I think there is a bipartisan realization certainly on this committee, and I commend the work that it's doing about the nature of the problem in Europe with the DSA though we find then the European Union stepping into speech, regulating it and bringing that restrictive model global. And this is where I think really the work that's been happening here is crucial because we can't allow that to happen because we're going back to COVID style censorship all over again.

Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA):

Thank you. And of course, it's doubly concerning when this actually implicates the free speech rights of Americans, but I would hope that moving forward we can try to work with our counterparts in Europe to try to get back to having these shared values around freedom of speech and we don't continue to see a divergence. Mr. Reed, I also wanted to ask you about the DMA because based on, I know you represent smaller app developers, but we also spoke with folks who represent Apple and Facebook and others, and it's a matter of public record, the way that these companies are now sort of uniquely targeted under this law and the similar law in the UK. Honestly, it caused me to sort of see some of the ongoing negotiations around tariffs and other issues through a somewhat different lens because the way that American companies are being targeted with the DMA really is a tax or imposes or is a direct transfer of wealth from our country overseas. And these are some of these sort of non-tariff barriers that American countries are now facing. So could you give us, give me your perspective on that and the DMA more broadly.

Morgan Reed:

Right. It's ironic that as you say, it's a non-tariff trade barrier, but the ultimate biggest loser is usually the smaller and medium sized companies. Early we heard a member of this committee just talk about bills here in the United States. The irony of those who supported those bills were also billionaire companies. We joked about the fact that it was the trillionaires versus the billionaires who went to war. And the problem when that happens, if any of you've run a small business, is the small guy gets crushed. And what's happening with the DMA in Europe is their desire to put pressure on the US companies means that there are fewer services, fewer features and less trust are available for the smaller businesses to take advantage of. And that's how we get crushed. And that ends up being a, as you say, a non tariff trade barrier because it puts the very companies that could compete with these giants at a disadvantage when they have to meet those new tests.

Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA):

Thank you. And I think that this is going to be an important issue for us to remain focused on as to how we can alleviate these barriers that our companies are facing that honestly are hindering innovation in Europe as well. I yield back, yield back to the chair.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Real clear on the most recent situation. Maybe I'll direct this, Mr. Farage. So Graham Linehan is an Irish citizen who posted something while in America and then gets arrested when he goes to the UK for some quote offensive post online. Is that accurate?

Nigel Farage, MP:

That is absolutely right.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Yeah. That's where this is all headed. That's exactly where this is all headed. The gentleman from California who accompanied us on the trip when we were so glad that he did is recognized for five minutes.

Rep. J. Luis Correa (D-CA):

Thank you Mr. Chair. And I also appreciate being invited on trip and spending time with you and a ranking member. Raskin. Very informative, interesting looking at the DMA winners and losers unattended consequences. According to a recent report commissioned by the ec, the future of European competitiveness, only four of the 50 top tech firms in the world are actually in Europe. As a Californian, I found it very interesting that a lot of the European entrepreneurs move out of Europe, move to the us, specifically California to grow and then possibly move back to Europe. I'm a Californian, so the health and welfare, the interest of California firms is interest to me and seeing hundreds of millions of dollars in fines under DMAs, nebulous violations being levied against California firms money that could be best spent on r and d in many ways is very bothersome.

I care about encouraging California entrepreneurs. We have the most successful entrepreneurs in the world today, yet they are essentially being targeted by the EU and other foreign regulations. California, this money is better, again, invested in creating jobs in California. And by the way, a lot of these firms that are actually being fined actually pay taxes in California today. California recently passed up Japan to become the fourth largest economy in the world. California is the number one producer of ag products in the world. Number one, in terms of venture capital in the us. Number one manufacturer, we pay a hundred billion dollars more to the US federal government than we get back on an annual basis. So despite all the challenges we have in California, we actually know how to do it right. And surprisingly, our workforce visa holders from other countries, workforce undocumented workers from around the world that actually harvest their crops manufacturing, we are the top manufacturer in the United States in terms of state, a lot of undocumented workers there. So California we actually can manage pretty well the best managed state, I would argue in the union. So Mr. Reed, I'm going to ask you, given your association with these small firms, how is the DMA affecting our California firms as they try to grow in the European Union?

Morgan Reed:

The ex ante regulation creates barriers of entry.

Rep. J. Luis Correa (D-CA):

What do you mean by ex ante? Explain that to me.

Morgan Reed:

In simple terms. It means that the European Union is determining the behavior before the bad act has happened. It's before it happens.

Rep. J. Luis Correa (D-CA):

So they're finding before the actual behavior?

Morgan Reed:

They're not just even finding, they're setting the rules by which you could be fined. The best way to think about it is they're saying, mother, may I, if you remember the game, mother May I, they're asking companies to go forth and say, can we do this? And then the commission says, well, yes you can or yes, you cannot. We in traditionally in the United States have taken an ex post meaning did you deceive someone? Did you lie? Did you cheat, did you steal? And then you're punished. Unfortunately, the EU is taking a mother, may I approach rather than a punishment approach. And that harms California businesses because it makes it a lot harder to get in the door.

Rep. J. Luis Correa (D-CA):

Mr. Price, you're from Irvine?

Lorcán Price:

Sorry.

Rep. J. Luis Correa (D-CA):

Yes. Mr. Price.

Lorcán Price:

Yes.

Rep. J. Luis Correa (D-CA):

Tell me a little bit about.

Lorcán Price:

Irvine?

Rep. J. Luis Correa (D-CA):

California firms and how the DMA, well, Irvine, by the way, a lot of biotech high tech.

Lorcán Price:

I think you might be referring to Professor Kaye.

Rep. J. Luis Correa (D-CA):

Mr Kaye, I'm sorry, go ahead. Mr. Kaye. Irvine.

David Kaye:

Yes. Yes. I teach at the University of California at Irvine. I actually wanted to respond to two of the points that you're making in part because ...

Rep. J. Luis Correa (D-CA):

You got about 20 seconds. Go.

David Kaye:

Thank you. In part because this hearing is entitled as one dealing with censorship, and we're spending quite a bit of time talking about defending companies. And two things I just wanted to mention. One is the DMA doesn't specifically discriminate against American companies any more than it does against California companies. And the second is that I think it's important to think about the other.

Rep. J. Luis Correa (D-CA):

Mr. Price. What would you say to that.

Lorcán Price:

In relation to discrimination?

Rep. J. Luis Correa (D-CA):

Yes.

Lorcán Price:

They'e designed the rules in such a way that they almost perfectly encompass American companies, particularly under the DSA. So if you're setting the rules and they just happen to throw a net over a particular target group, I think you can legitimately infer from that. That was the intention.

Rep. J. Luis Correa (D-CA):

The intention was discrimination.

Lorcán Price:

The intention is to throw a dragnet over US companies and turn them into a censorship....

Rep. J. Luis Correa (D-CA):

The intention is discrimination against American firms.

Lorcán Price:

That's precisely what the outcome is.

Rep. J. Luis Correa (D-CA):

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Before I yield, I also have some articles I'd like to submit for the record, if I may.

Letter by Chairman Fitzgerald and myself to President Trump dated April 9th of this year outlining our concerns with the Digital Markets Act. Second report by European Commission dated September 24th, The future of European Competitives, which is failing to translate into innovation. Third article statement by the Chamber of Progress dated February 10th, how Digital Markets Act has Become Europeans' Digital Curtain. Number four, article by the Information and Technology Foundation dated June 30th, Six Ways the DMA is Backfiring on Europe. Fifth article, Washington Examiner, July 28th, excuse me, EU Regulations Impose Heavy Costs on US Companies. Finally article in the Journal Wall Street, The Tech Industry is Huge and Europe's Share of It is Very Small. Thank you, sir.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Without objection. Gentlemen yields back, gentleman from Texas recognized.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX):

Thank the chairman. I think for holding this hearing. I thank the witnesses Mr. Price. You referenced Paivi Rasanen earlier, correct?

Lorcán Price:

Yes sir.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX):

Can you just real quick in like 30 seconds, give the quick summary of what the facts are behind that issue with respect to why she is facing prosecution despite having served in Parliament and I believe as a minister in the government.

Lorcán Price:

That's correct, sir. Over five years ago she posted a tweet with a verse from scripture, and in that tweet she objected to her church, the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran church using church funds to fund the Helsinki Pride parade. And for that then a criminal proceedings were launched against her.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX):

And she's been dealing with that for four to five years, correct?

Lorcán Price:

That's correct, sir. Her case is before the Supreme Court at the end of October

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX):

Facing jail time.

Lorcán Price:

Facing significant fines.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX):

And for having expressed her faith with respect to issues involving marriage in the context of a Bible verse, correct?

Lorcán Price:

That's correct, sir.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX):

And so now we've got, as the chairman eliminated a moment ago, we've got this issue involving Graham Linehan who here in the United States made a joke and then is arrested in the UK, correct?

Lorcán Price:

Yes. He's being arrested or he was arrested for comments that he posted while here.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX):

And that's correct, Mr. Farage. You agree.

Nigel Farage, MP:

It is.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX):

and that joke had something to do with, as I've looked it up, trans identified males in female only space and he made some joke about that issue.

Nigel Farage, MP:

That's exactly right.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX):

And so we've got now someone being arrested for alleged transphobia or some sort of hate comment involving a joke on another continent. Now in the meantime, we've had Mr. Farage talking about Lucy Connolly and her fate, which I understand. She got sentenced something like 31 or 32 months for having put out a social media post. Now that social media post has been alleged to have tied to some incitement. She deleted the post, but the post was in response to violence. Right. And on the heels of a whole lot of issues involving crime in the UK, whatever the connection is, right, we're saying there is crime in the UK. Now here's my question, Mr. Farage, how do you feel from the standpoint of borders in the UK? Are open borders healthy for either the United States or the UK? No, they're disastrous. And are they having a deleterious effect with respect to crime and culture in the UK? Y

Nigel Farage, MP:

Yes, they are. It's been a debate that's been very difficult to have without being screamed at, but we are now having that debate.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX):

And so now we've got a moment here where we've got someone being put in jail for putting out something in social media that is allegedly transphobic. And so my question is, I wonder what's going to win out? What's going to win out when the questions of Islamophobia and the tenants of Islam mash up against transphobia, what will the determiners of truth in the UK government decide? What will those who make decisions about what we can say and what we cannot say do when these worlds collide? Would you have any comment on that? Mr. Farage? In the

Nigel Farage, MP:

Lucy Connolly case, it's very interesting that this horrific murderer, three young girls happened. The country was in very deep shock, very deep shock. The government deliberately withheld the truth about who the perpetrator was, and it led to a sea of speculation. It turned out ultimately that the man that committed those murders was in fact UK born, had not come over on a boat, as was being said on social media. Just goes to show that actually however bad the news is, people deserve to know the truth about a situation. It stopped that frenzy of speculation. Who's going to win these great battles? I think that there is a growing silent majority, certainly in my country, who object to the two tier concept that Lucy Connolly gets 31. And by the way, there were mitigating circumstances for what she said with her own personal situation, but she's arrested very quickly.

She's threatened that if she pleads not guilty, she'll go straight to prison and beyond remand until the trial in goodness knows when we're not defending what she said. But she recognized her error in a moment of anger and passion and upset and she withdrew it three and a half hours there. I think that the answer, Mr. Roy, is that the silent majority will win. The silent majority will win. Good will triumph over bad and common sense will be returned. It won't happen quickly. It won't happen quickly. As I've already outlined, there is coming down the tracks and Islamophobia law, which would divide speech even even more widely than it is now. But in the end, common sense decency will win.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX):

Is Sharia law consistent with Western values?

Nigel Farage, MP:

No.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX):

Thank you. I yield back.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Yield back gentlemen yields back. The gentleman from Florida is recognized.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (R-FL):

Thank you Mr. Chairman. Mr. Farage, thanks for being here. Coming across the pound, I'm sorry to hear you're leaving the hearing early.

Nigel Farage, MP:

Well, there's not a question of leaving the hearing early, but I do have other things to do. Yes.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (R-FL):

Oh, where are you going?

Nigel Farage, MP:

I'm so sorry about that.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (R-FL):

It's okay. Where are you going?

Nigel Farage, MP:

It's not lunch. I promise you

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (R-FL):

It's not lunch. You're not going to have lunch?

Nigel Farage, MP:

I don't think so. No. No

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (R-FL):

Lunch.

Nigel Farage, MP:

Sad, isn't it?

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (R-FL):

You're meeting with the President.

Nigel Farage, MP:

I can't remember what the schedule is. It's possible...

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (R-FL):

You can't remember if you're meeting with the President,

Nigel Farage, MP:

I'm being very polite and I'm not going to tell you what I'm doing this afternoon, but I can assure you that ...

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (R-FL):

There's the free speech hearing. You're not going to tell me what you're doing this afternoon.

Nigel Farage, MP:

Oh, free speech is one thing. Discretion is quite another too.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (R-FL):

Okay. Alright, so you're, you're leaving to have lunch with the President. So Mr. Farage, I have a question. Have you heard about the Epstein thing that's going on here?

Nigel Farage, MP:

I have.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (R-FL):

You have. What do you think about it?

Nigel Farage, MP:

I'm not going to give comment on anything happening in America. I'm here as a witness.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (R-FL):

Perfect.

Nigel Farage, MP:

I'm here as a witness. I'm here as a witness for what is happening in the United Kingdom and in the European times.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (R-FL):

Lemme just go through it. So it's been nine months, right? Since we've been meeting in these hearings, we've not had Pam Bondi here. Even though we have jurisdiction over the Department of Justice, not Dan Bongino.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

The gentleman yield?

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (R-FL):

Not Kash Patel, I will a hundred percent. We'll go back and forth. Lemme just do my thing.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

And we'll, well, I'm just going to correct, Kash Patel's coming in two, I'll give you an extra 10 seconds. Kash Patel, director of FBI is coming in two weeks and the attorney general's coming in four weeks.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (R-FL):

Fantastic. But still we're not, we're not doing that this week. The week we're having votes on the Epstein thing. So Pam Bondi gives the influencers, these Republican influencers a binder, it says part one of the Epstein files. No, if you saw it, it was quite spectacular. The Attorney General then says the Epstein list is on her desk. Then DOJ issues. A memo says there is no list. Then the, do you have any questions about any of that? We've had no hearings on any of that at all. That the list is on my desk. Then there is no list. Then we gave binders to Republican influencers. This committee had no questions on any of how that transpired at the Department of Justice. Then hold on.

Nigel Farage, MP:

Well it sounds like you're are going to in the next few weeks. It's a jolly good thing

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (R-FL):

Mr. Farage, we can talk soon, but not yet. Okay, so then the president comes out and says the whole thing's a hoax. He blasts his own base. He blames Barack Obama. I mean he hasn't been president for a very long time. Republicans then in committee vote against the release and the rules committee. Then Republicans refuse to go back in the rules committee because they're getting blasted for their vote getting crushed by their own base. We leave Congress leaves a day early, then the administration sends the Deputy Attorney General to meet with Maxwell in jail. He happens to be Trump's former personal attorney. She says something favorable about the president miraculously she gets transferred to a minimum security prison. The president starts talking about how he has the right to pardon her if he wanted to. The leaks to the Wall Street Journal then stop. We come back from break.

We have the Massie petition. Kohler does a document dump where 97% of these documents are already public. How long has he had those documents? Why hasn't he released them for the last six weeks? Does it the day of the votes. Then Republicans drop a non-binding resolution trying to kill the Massie discharge petition. The White House said passing the Massie discharge petition is a hostile act. Wow. That's a lot of distraction and deflection and misinformation. Wait, wait. Passing a discharge petition to release the Epstein files, the White House said would be a hostile act. Nope, we have no questions about that, but why is it that we're spending so much political capital to keep this list from coming out? You think the list should come out? You think we should know the people who dealt with Mr. Epstein? Mr. Farage.

Nigel Farage, MP:

I thought I was coming to a hearing on free speech not process.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (R-FL):

Oh, well listen, but here's the good....

Nigel Farage, MP:

And it sounds like you're discussing process.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (R-FL):

No. No. Do you think the list should come out?

Nigel Farage, MP:

I have no opinion on it. I don't know at all.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (R-FL):

So we have victims that were sexually abused by potentially people in power and we don't know who's on the list.

Nigel Farage, MP:

I'm very happy.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (R-FL):

Hold on Mr. Farage. We don't know who's on the list. We don't know. We don't know who's on the list. We don't know if the president is or is not. I'm not going to say he is or isn't. I'm just going to say these are weird behaviors. We don't know that there aren't other people in Congress that are on the list, right? We have no idea. Do you think the list should come out? Do you think people in power should be held to account for these victims who have been sexually abused and assaulted? Do you think the list should come out?

Nigel Farage, MP:

I think that I'm very happy to come to a different hearing where you talk about legal process, but today.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Will the gentleman yield for a quick question? Were you aware that he has already called for the Epstein file to be released? He's been reported that he has called for it to be released.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (R-FL):

Oh yeah, right here. Just to refresh your memory. Yeah, I happen to have this.

Nigel Farage, MP:

But that's not random but that is not, look, you can ask me if you like about social security policy.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (R-FL):

Do you agree yourself? Do you agree with yourself?

Nigel Farage, MP:

We are here to discuss free speech.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (R-FL):

Hold on. It's awkward for your lunch after this. Do you agree with yourself?

Nigel Farage, MP:

No, it isn't at all.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (R-FL):

Okay, Mr. Chairman, I'm just curious. This committee has jurisdiction over the Department of Justice. Why have we allowed Comer to cover this up for the last couple of...

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

As I said...

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (R-FL):

Why is this committee not taking jurisdiction?

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Like I said six weeks ago that we will have the FBI director in, we will have the Attorney General in and we are doing that in two weeks. You can ask all. You can go through that whole list. That whole list. You can do whatever you want to do with. I got lots of questions for the FBI director, including including the whistleblower who came forward and told him the Adam Schiff leaked classified information. I want to ask him about that as well. As well as the issues you all want to ask him about. That's why he's coming. So we can ask all these questions and follow the process as Mr. Farage just talked about. Gentleman from Virginia.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (R-FL):

Unanimous consent.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Unanimous consent.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (R-FL):

I'd like to enter the political article into the record that Mr. Farage said the Epstein file should be released .

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Without objection. The gentleman for Virginia is recognized.

Rep. Ben Kline (R-VA):

I thank the chairman. I want to talk about censorship tools that are being used by Europe and protectionist measures that have major consequences for US companies and free expression worldwide. I am glad to have you all here to get your views on those issues. Mr. Farage, you've called the Online Safety Act, a borderline dystopian censorship regime and many agree including myself, that the law badly overreaches, one of the most serious criticisms is that it empowers Ofcom to undermine encryption and open the door to not just government surveillance of posts online and public statements, but private messages raising alarms not just in the UK but beyond UK borders. Vice President JD Vance has warned this could threaten American's privacy as well. Do you recognize that this is not just a domestic issue for the UK but a global one and if you become Prime Minister, what assurances would you give allies that the UK will not undermine end-to-end privacy standards?

Nigel Farage, MP:

You have my absolute word that a reform government will repeal the Online Safety Act and will go right back actually to legislation back to 2010 under which these whole concepts of hate speech have begun to be interpreted in UK law and we will do that. Do we want to protect kids? This is the big question. Yes, we do. We need to find means, we need to find ways. I have suggested earlier that hardware could be part of the solution, but yes, we want to protect, to encourage and let free speech flourish.

Rep. Ben Kline (R-VA):

You've said Reform UK has access to some of the best tech minds to design alternatives. How do you propose to balance protecting children without scanning private messages or weakening encryption?

Nigel Farage, MP:

I think, well, as I said, I don't have all the answers to this, but the British Prime Minister says he has got the answers to this. Well, if it's about protecting kids, why does the legislation give off Calm the most extraordinary and frankly arbitrary powers? And why is there the establishment under the act of an elite police force unit to monitor what is said online? So it is far better to be honest and say we don't have the perfect solutions than to pretend we have with legislation. That is a sledgehammer that misses the nut.

Rep. Ben Kline (R-VA):

Thank you Mr. Price. The EU's Digital Services Act imposes liability for so-called systemic risks. How does that chill religious or political speech and do you see conflicts with First Amendment principles?

Lorcán Price:

Yeah, that's correct. The systemic risk provision I think constitutes a form of content moderation that they're misrepresenting frankly in their letters to you and where the systemic risk provisions talk about, in fact, damage to what they call civil discourse. And we've already seen prosecutions including clients of ours who have been prosecuted for, among other things, praying silently, discussing the differences between Christianity and Islam. Tweeting a verse from the Bible. So if these constitute systemic risks to civil discourse, the EU has the power in terms of this content moderation provision to step in

Rep. Ben Kline (R-VA):

Damage to civil discourse seems a little broad, doesn't it? Absolutely. Mr. Reed, the EU's Digital Markets Act and the UK's Digital Markets Competition and Consumers Act are sold as pro-competition. But don't compliance costs just burden small app developers?

Morgan Reed:

Absolutely. The problem is that it's interesting as you talked about, how do you do a better job? You asked how do we do a better job to protect children? One of the ways we do it is by empowering parents to be good parents. And one of our deepest concerns is by removing some of the capability of the platforms to curate and provide information to parents about what applications do through a clear forward interface that they see every day that's useful. It makes it harder to parent, harder to know what apps are on your kid's device and harder for you to control it. So we absolutely see that not only are there problems with it on encryption, which we agree with you a hundred percent, but we also think it weakens our ability as parents to be in charge of the devices our children are using.

Rep. Ben Kline (R-VA):

Yeah, these rules don't help parents, consumers, if you will, they just shift power from platforms and from parents and from consumers to regulators. Correct?

Morgan Reed:

Correct.

Rep. Ben Kline (R-VA):

Do these regimes create a level playing field for US firms or do they advantage European competitors at the expense of American innovation?

Morgan Reed:

Well, the original thought behind the DMA was that Europe had not been successful in creating their own industry, as was alluded to by several other members of Congress and Congressman Correa noted it as well. Europe's economic potential has slowed while the United States has grown incredibly. We've gone from almost equal in 2008 to a 50% increase in size of the US economy between 2008 and now. And we think a lot of it comes from the small technology companies that have been creating amazing devices, amazing products, amazing applications that you're all using, and we are disappointed that there aren't the same opportunities for the US, for our EU members. Thanks.

Rep. Ben Kline (R-VA):

I yield back.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Gentlemen yields back. The gentle lady from Pennsylvania is recognized.

Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA):

Thank you Mr. Chairman. For years political extremists, including some of our colleagues, have claimed without evidence that so-called conservative speech is being canceled. But the speech at issue is not conservative political speech, it's hate speech including incitement of violence threats and harassments of particular people or groups and lies about almost everything from election results to healthcare and there's nothing conservative about any of that. So today's hearing appears to be one more attempt by these extremists to claim victimhood, promote falsehoods and normalize radical ideas all while attacking others. Today our Republican colleagues claim that our European allies pose the biggest threat to Americans free speech today. Seriously, there's an all out assault on the First Amendment in the us but it's coming from inside the house, the White House, the executive branch of our own country. For the past eight months, our Republican colleagues have done nothing but cheer on the administration's un-American attacks because the truth is they're all for free speech, but only if it's the speech they agree with.

I'd say if you really want to talk about censorship, let's talk about how this administration with the support of our MAGA colleagues has tried to strangle speech and ideas that it doesn't agree with when that speech comes from the Free Press College campuses, law firms and judges, library books, the Smithsonian Museum's responsible investors, scientists dedicated employees with deep expertise and more. We've seen this White House use executive orders, threats and intimidation, illegal withholding of federal funding raids by masked and armed police and even sending military troops onto American streets to shut down opposition to this administration's policies. Professor Kaye. You are an internationally recognized expert on freedom of expression and have studied the growing assault on free speech and civil society around the world. In your testimony you said that the situation in the US raises serious alarms. Can you elaborate on that?

David Kaye:

Yes. Well, everything that Thank you for the question, everything that you just mentioned is alarming the assaults on the press, on universities, on public protest, all of those things I think are the kinds of things that historically the United States has fought against. So all of those things are very problematic and I think that one way to think about them perhaps, and it's useful in this committee actually in the context of this committee, is to think of those things that the Trump administration is doing as a contrast to something like the DSA, right? So the DSA sees a problem, which I think is a problem shared or perceived on both sides of the aisle, which is massive platform power and also the kinds of content that you alluded to. But the DSA doesn't create any new rules that allow either the European commission or countries to censor. It is a transparency regime. It's a risk assessment regime. It's actually researcher access. It's actually a tool to give us information about what's happening online that's in just sharp contrast to the kind of issues that we're seeing in this country, which are very much focused on criticism and content.

Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA):

Yeah, I think my colleague Ms. Jayapal talked about the fact that we had a very robust investigation of Big Tech in prior congresses, which has kind of been shut down by a new alliance between Big Tech and the Republican party, but it is about dealing with the real issues and the very real power that these Big Tech platforms have and trying to provide tools for ordinary citizens to fight back against disinformation or harmful contact. Can you talk a little bit about that?

David Kaye:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you think about one tool that the DSA offers, it's this assurance that individuals will be able to challenge to appeal content moderation decisions. That is not something that is allowed or mandated by law in the United States. One other thing just to mention in this connection, I think Mr. Farage mentioned, and it's really just to highlight how hard some of these questions might be. Mr. Farage has suggested the possibility that hardware could be part of a solution to deal with children's access to harmful information. I think there's something possibly there, but it's another form of censorship. I think we should just recognize that restrictions are on the table in the United States, in the UK, elsewhere. I think the Europeans has adopted an approach that makes quite a good deal of sense.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

We're trying to get to as many members as possible. Generally this time has expired. The gentleman from New Jersey has recognized Mr. Farage, that's to leave in a few minutes. So we want to get as many members as possible.

Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ):

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just before I begin, my friend, he's not here now. Mr. Moskowitz's from Florida, this is kind of an old trick in debating when you're losing the debate on the issue, you change the issue. This is not about Epstein. It has nothing to do with that. And as the chairman so correctly said, the Attorney general's going to be here, the FBI director's going to be here and we can talk about it till the cows come home. Second thing is, I believe it was you, Mr. Farage that said, COVID changed our world and in many ways, more than just a biological disease, what it did to us psychologically, governmentally philosophically was really bad and we're still not out of it yet because of what happened then we're losing our freedoms. We are losing our freedoms. And it's not because of an American Congress, it's not because of American courts, it's not because of American Republicans.

And I'm going to even say it's not because of American Democrats. It is due to bureaucrats in Brussels and in London, sorry, and in other places as well. It's wrong. I am unabashedly and I think we all are here, hopefully pro-American. We should be protecting our citizens. Instead, we're watching foreign bureaucrats come to our country and try to force United States companies to sense their humor, satire and news they don't like. It's backwards, it's bizarre, it's perverse and it's weird. That's what we would call it in New Jersey. It's just weird and it's not good. It's the opposite of everything that the United States of America fought for and stands for. And it's a globalist mindset. We can all talk about the issues, but I'm going to keep talking about globalism versus American exceptionalism and individuality. I believe very much sincerely that the whole battle that's going on now with the right and the left, what's happening in Great Britain, what's happening around the world, what's happening in the United States is very much that argument, individuality.

And in our case here in the states, Americanism exceptionalism or is it globalism and like the eus Digital Service Act and the UK's Online Safety Act or the pinnacle examples. And they are of how upside down things have gotten and the effort to globalize our society. And that is the ultimate showdown. It is resulting in our losing of our freedom, losing our influence. And the only winner here are some countries in Europe, Russia, China and others. Europe is spending their time attacking American tech companies dictating how our platforms operate, how our technology operates and punishing people for exhibiting free speech. The European model, I'm sorry if I offend anyone, but it is wrong. We fought a revolution to defend ourselves. Men and women pledge their lives, their treasure, their sacred honor so that they wouldn't have to go through this. And we never thought that Americans would be stripped of that.

That's why this moment is so serious. It's more serious than most Americans. And people realize right now, and for generations we thought if we were ever attacked, it was going to be a nuclear holocaust. We thought it was going to be the domino theory. We thought it was going to be world wars. We thought it was so many things. I maintain it's this, if we lose our first amendment rights and our freedom of speech, we have lost everything and nothing else matters. And internet technology is being used as a vehicle to make this happen. So I have a question for Mr. Farage and Mr. Price. This hearing is really good and I'm sure we're going to have some other hearings, but more than hearings and talking about it, what is it tangibly? This is a hard question that we can do to stop it. What is it, Mr. Farage? I'll start with you.

Nigel Farage, MP:

The debate we've had here, I mean nobody here from any side of the debate has told me that the Online Safety Act is a wonderful piece of legislation right across the spectrum here you're having your own internal debates about free speech in America, right? Healthy and what this committee is for. I want to make this argument. Yeah, I know these companies are very big and very powerful. Many of the tech firms, but governments talk to each other and it needs the American administration and businesses to have an honest conversation. Brussels, you won't get a hearing. They are fundamentally anti-American, frankly. And I was there for 20 years. I saw it. I do think there was a conversation to be had with the British government about the shape of their legislation and the impact it can have on American individuals, their liberty and American companies. So I'm calling for, as a result of what's happened, it's clearly got the legislation's clearly to the wrong thing. I think it is cause for proper intergovernmental debate,

Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ):

I hope that we have it. And by the way, we have censorship in America. Watch ABC, NBC and CBS. I'm at a meetings, I'm in a discussion. I see and hear what happens. I watch my wife has channel six on, which drives me nuts at home and it has nothing to do with the damn stuff that actually happened. And that's the truth. We have it already and I pray to God we don't lose America. Mr. Chairman Indulgence and I'll shut up. Mr. Price didn't get a chance quickly. Yes, sir.

Lorcán Price:

You talked about putting pressure on and I agree that Brussels is a cold house for free speech, but a lot of the regulations actually happening in my own country in Ireland, in Dublin, where a lot of the tech companies are headquartered or European headquarters and it's the Irish Media Commission or commissioned in man in the Irish language, which is the ground zero really for a lot of this regulation. And here's where I think the US can do a lot because there's strong bilateral relationships between Ireland and the United States is to put pressure on the Irish government to stop the bullying of tech companies. And already X is in the Irish Supreme Court soon against the Irish Media Commissioner. So they're already starting to crack down. So I would hope that you use your good offices here to put pressure on the Irish.

Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY):

Mr. Chairman, I have a point of parliamentary inquiry.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Gentlemen is recognized.

Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY):

Why is the witness leaving this hearing early and certainly without, he hasn't engaged me.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

He told us about, this is not unusual. It's happened before under Democrat leadership of the committee under Republican leadership of the Committee. We're trying to get through as many people as we can. You had many of your witnesses who did not ask Mr. Farage a question. Many of your colleagues, if you could have coordinated with them, you didn't go in order. We didn't necessarily go in orders because we wanted to get as many people up front asking Mr. Farage questions. Could

Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY):

We ask him if he would be willing to stay for a little?

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

It's totally up to the witness, but if the witness has to go somewhere, I understand. We were glad that he came. We were glad that we had a chance to visit with him in Europe so you could have went on that trip and had a chance to interact with this.

Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY):

I wasn't invited, but next time.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

You were definitely invited. Everyone was invited from the Democrat side. The whole committee was invited. The chair now recognizes the gentle lady from Georgia for questions. And Mr. Farage, if you can stay longer, we would definitely welcome that.

Nigel Farage, MP:

When I chaired this event in the Palace of Westminster, we had an hour for it because time was very tight and that was perhaps the source of a slight disagreement Mr. Raskin and I had.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

A little bit of confusion on that.

Nigel Farage, MP:

We would've given this...

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Each side got an hour, but the whole thing was limited to an hour and then your side went and then you called it off.

Nigel Farage, MP:

I was given the instructions. This we've given three hours and I apologize, but now I can't stay longer.

Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY):

Okay. I could send the Constitution down to the White House for the President to read it while he waits for you.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Gentleman's not recognized. The gentle lady from Georgia has five minutes to ask for questions while Mr. Farage is still here. And then he will leave when he has to leave.

Rep. Lucy McBath (D-GA):

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to our witnesses today. Our first amendment rights, as you can see, are definitely under attack. Words are very powerful tools as you've heard them being used here in this hearing. And this administration has gone out of their way to retaliate against our students, news agencies and others who express views that don't align with their extreme agenda by using lawsuits, eliminating funding, and even going so far to send out a memo with a list of restricted words that can't even be used. The actions of this administration have been ruled against in court time and time again by judges from both parties on a basis of abusing our constitutional rights from freezing funding for colleges because they do not bend to this administration's will to removing programs that are designed to expand student understanding and access and education, which I'd like to add increases future opportunities for our Republican constituents as well.

And using federal investigation powers to retaliate, we are watching the First Amendment be manipulated in ways that this nation hope that they would never see hear it from the judges who have ruled against government bullies who attempt to violate the rights of the American people. US District Judge Num found First Amendment violations and the government investigation into media matters, which he stated is likely to succeed in its claim that the FTC was using this investigation as a retaliation against the Watchdog group for claims against a prominent Trump supporter, a clear violation of First Amendment protections and the cases they just go on and on and on. Us District Judge McFadden, a Trump appointee ordered that the associated presses access to the White House press be reinstated. Really that denying their access because of differing viewpoints was a clear violation of the First Amendment. If the majority wants to talk about attacks on the First Amendment and other parts of the world, they need to start right here in our administration.

The Constitution is the foundation of this country. It is not meant to be trampled on for political or for business advantage. When you love something, you want to protect it and you want to do what's best for it, you want to improve it. This means people will speak out and disagree on actions taken in their country and offer critiques of our leaders. And yes, the politicians, that's a constitutionally protective, right? If the First Amendment is our guardrail, then this administration is truly trying to push us off the road. This government should be strong enough to accept any criticism without violating people's rights and offending the man in the White House. Professor Kaye, I have a question, just one question for you. Based on what you've seen since this January, if our colleagues in the majority continue to pretend that our First Amendment rights are not under attack here at home, what could this mean for our country within the next three years?

David Kaye:

Thank you for that question. I think that as we look at the current moment and the current situation for our media, for our universities, for people's access to information generally, particularly access to health information, I think it pretends really very problematic and dark days ahead, will we be able to have access to information that makes us informed parents or informed citizens able to make voting decisions? I think that's the kind of future that we should expect if we don't recognize this situation. And I think that the tenor of the conversation could at least recognize that there are violations of fundamental rights to freedom of expression by this government right now. At least recognize it. I know that Democrats in the last five years called out the Biden administration from time to time when it did things that it thought was inconsistent with free speech values. I think having that kind of honest discussion and then some real constraint is where the committee should be heading.

Rep. Lucy McBath (D-GA):

Thank you so much. I encourage everyone that sees nothing wrong with this administration's retaliatory attacks on expressions of our First Amendment to consider just how much you are willing to give up to appease this man and the White House. At this time, I'd like to yield the remainder of my time to our ranking member.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

There's no time left to yield. I think the gentle lady, gentle lady yields back. I do have to run to another commitment. I will be back in 20 minutes. We will have Mr not take over his chair. Mr. Farage, if you have to leave. I look forward to visiting with you sometime later. Hopefully

Nigel Farage, MP:

I do. But thank you very much.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Gentleman from the gentleman from Alabama is recognized for five minutes.

Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Farage, I enjoyed Milwaukee at the Harley Davidson plant with you. That was a great evening. So question for Mr. Price or Mr. Farage. One requirement for speech to be censored as a false communication offense under the ossa is that speech must cause non-trivial psychological or physical harm. What is non-trivial psychological harm?

Nigel Farage, MP:

I honestly don't know. And that's the problem with this legislation. It's so open-ended. It could mean anything. It leaves this entirely in the hands of local police forces to make their decisions. And the other disturbing element of this is much within this act can be changed on a whim by a government minister or at the other end. It can be interpreted by ofcom in ways that it sees fit. This is not good legislation. It's totally open-ended. It literally mean whatever you want it to mean.

Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL):

And local law enforcement, I guess, can make that decision on who they decide to prosecute and who they do not. Have we seen it tending one way or the other? I know we've talked about a couple of cases in here. Are there certain people being targeted you think with OSA?

Nigel Farage, MP:

Well, that's the fear, isn't it? The fear is that certain communities will be acted upon more harshly than other communities. That creates the impression of a two-tier country that then breaks down trust in law and order the democratic system and everything else. I thought what was interesting overnight was that the boss, so Mark Rowley, the boss of the Metropolitan Police has said, look, we arrested this guy at Heathrow because we had to under the law, but they've thrown it back to the government to say, come on, can you just define more clearly what you want this legislation to mean? And that's why I think it's rotten legislation. It impacts us in ways that we can't yet foresee. It impacts potentially Americans and American businesses and it needs to be gotten rid of and we need to start again. So

Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL):

Mr. Price, talking about affecting American businesses, I guess Europe's 440 million people. The US is 300 million people. How do these companies, what do you see down the road for these platforms, these social media platforms, these companies that feel like they have to try and comply if they're going to do business in Europe, if in fact we don't repeal this OSA thing, which I hope Mr. Farage is able to do that with his leadership at some point in the near future. So how does this play out for our companies, Mr. Price and for free speech in Europe in general?

Lorcán Price:

Well, on the corporate side, they're facing a really complicated piece of legislation. And as Mr. Farage outlined with the provisions that are confusing in the Online Safety Act in the United Kingdom, there are similarly extremely confusing provisions in the Digital Services Act. So the mindset has to be one normally of compliance. One company has stood up to this whole regime and is challenging it at every level, and that's x. I hope others join and do the same because the European Commission though really has been quite threatening. You'll recall the Thierry Breton letter, of course, about the Elon Musk's interview with then candidate President Trump. And you'll also see that other members of the commission have made threatening remarks against companies as well on these so-called voluntary codes of conduct. When X and Google left one of the codes of conduct, a European commissioner said, well, of course they are voluntary, but we note that you've left them and we'll still hold you on the obligations. And you have Thierry Breton saying as well, you can run, but you can't hide if you leave the codes of conduct. So the whole thing is designed to force compliance and the hammer that they have, of course, these enormous crippling fines.

Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL):

It's like 10% on global revenue understand correctly. So for some of these companies, that's pretty tremendous fine.

Lorcán Price:

Absolutely, yeah. Of turnover.

Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL):

And I guess could you, as we're looking through this, it's almost like people could claim that they were offended or hurt, you hurt their feelings and then all of a sudden you're a target of this investigation. Is that right, Mr. Farage? Is that kind of...

Nigel Farage, MP:

Yes. And frankly, under free speech, we should be allowed to cause offense. And that happens quite often. I offend you. You should be able to offend me. Provided we know what the limits are and the limits I think we fully understand of incitement, for example, then we have to get back to a much freer way of living. And if people say rude things and we don't like them, well, we just ignore them and get on. Like

Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL):

Today when you were accused of Russian collusion, I guess that was pretty offensive.

Nigel Farage, MP:

Well, I remember the Russia hoax very, very well. We had shades of it earlier on this morning. That's what I was thinking. But not much more than that. I'm pleased to say. Well, thank you and Mr. Chairman, with that, I'll yield back. Thank you. And we're going to have to go Mr. Chairman, but thank you very much

Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY):

Mr. Farage, you can blame it on me. One more. Oh, you're avoiding me,

Rep. Brad Knott (R-NC):

Mr. Farage. Thank you. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from New York. Mr. Goldman.

Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY):

I'm sorry to see you leave, Mr. Farage. I actually add much that we agree upon and was looking forward to your testimony because it is very nice and refreshing to hear from my GOP colleagues that they are worried about authoritarianism. Mr. Biggs and Mr. McClintock talked both said that earlier, and I imagine given what's going on in this country, when the president is sending the military into American cities as weaponizing the Department of Justice to investigate his enemies requiring loyalty oaths from the federal, all federal workers at risk of otherwise being fired, the list goes on and on. It is reassuring to hear that the Republicans who have remained stone silent about Trump's authoritarian takeover of our government here are actually concerned about authoritarianism. And I found it really heartening that Mr. Van Drew said, and I quote, if we lose our first Amendment rights, we lose everything. Now in his opening statement, Mr. Farage said, quote, when the government starts regulating speech, it is rarely those that agree with the government who find themselves in court. And Mr. Farage, I'll ask you the question, is that similar to your concern about suppressing speech that disagrees with the government?

Oh, Mr. Farage's left. Well, Mr. Raskin, then maybe just, you can stand in for Mr. Farage for a minute here. I know you are a champion of free speech. I'm not sure it's the same free speech that Mr. Farage is supporting, but if there's concern about the government regulating speech is because it is rarely those that agree with the government who find themselves in court, then you would think that Mr. Farage and all of our Republican colleagues would be very, very concerned if a administration here in the United States was investigating criminally individuals who made the colossal mistake of speaking out against the President. That would be a clear violation of Mr. Farage's principle. Is that right?

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

He was talking about the importance of political dissent, and this is a test, Mr. Goldman, I think of our constitutional patriotism. To what extent are we willing to speak up for people who are the targets of government repression, even if we don't agree with what they're saying? A great example of that is our colleague, Congresswoman MacGyver from New Jersey. I would hope that in a comparable circumstance, I would stand up for a Republican colleague who tries to exercise his or her oversight rights by going to a government facility on a prearranged visit, and then gets caught up in the chaos and confusion outside and they want to send her to jail for 30 years. I did stand up for our colleague from New York, I'm spacing his name, Mr. Santos, Mr. Santos' friend, because they wanted to expel him without his having a conviction or an ethics process. And I said, that wasn't fair. So I think I passed a micro test there. I would hope some of our colleagues would say, agree, no, don't prosecute our colleagues just for doing their jobs.

Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY):

Well, let's talk about that because that is exactly what this Department of Justice is doing. Recently we heard publicly, which would ordinarily never happen. The Department of Justice does not say publicly. They don't confirm that there are any investigations of anyone until there's an indictment because that person or those individuals can't defend themselves. But now we know that Senator Adam Schiff, who led the first impeachment of Donald Trump, is under investigation by the Department of Justice, New York State Attorney General Letitia James, who filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump and his business. She is now under investigation Miles Taylor, who literally did only, the only thing that he did was write op-ed and a book criticizing the president of the United States, he is under criminal investigation. Chris Krebs, whose offense I think was to say that the 2020 election was the most secure ever. He is under investigation. John Bolton, who has criticized the president, gets his house rated. Lisa Cook, the Fed governor, is now under investigation for mortgage fraud. I guess because she doesn't want to lower rates. The degree to which this government is suppressing speech that simply opposes the president's views should make Mr. Farage and every single one of my Republican colleagues speak out in favor of the First Amendment. And yet we have heard nothing. There is still time, my friends and I yield back.

Rep. Brad Knott (R-NC):

Thank you, sir. The chair now recognizes the general lady from Wyoming.

Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY):

Benjamin Franklin said over 270 years ago, 'Freedom of speech is a principle pillar of a free government. When this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved and tyranny is erected on its ruins. An evil magistrate entrusted with power to punish four words would be armed with a weapon, the most destructive and terrible under pretense of pruning off the exuberant branches, he would be apt to destroy the tree.'

Mr. Farage talked in his opening statement that noted that Europe's regulatory regime risks exporting restrictive standards that could violate American's constitutional rights, so I'd like to expose that and discuss that a little bit further. He noted that the Oso Benignly titled Online Safety Act exemplified this regulatory model. The OSA is marketed as a measure to protect children online, but it is clearly being used as a means to actually impose government backed censorship, especially speech, which is critical of government policy. As an egregious example, we have learned that the OSA has been used against Katie Lamb MP for wield of Kent to block videos of her speeches made in parliament critical of the fallout from the country's immigration policies. Mr. Price, are you familiar with the circumstance where actual speeches in parliament or other public figures, their speeches are being censored by the government under this claim of protecting minors or protecting people from hearing this speech?

Lorcán Price:

I'm familiar with censorship of public protests. That's already happened in the United Kingdom. The Online Safety Act has placed blocks on those to protect children. That's the claim, but it has prevented adults from accessing it as well.

Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY):

So the Times was also reported that using the Communications Act of 2003 and the Malicious Communications Act of 1988, there have been 37 police forces have made over 12,000 arrests in 2023 alone, which is the equivalent of 33 a day, all in relation to social media posts. Are you familiar with that information, Mr. Price?

Lorcán Price:

I am, yes.

Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY):

Okay. In July, the House of Common Science Innovation and Technology Committee released a report indicating that the OSA was merely a first step, is the way that they have described this. In other words, they are planning to do even more to address what they described as online harm. Have you heard that as well?

Lorcán Price:

I have, yes.

Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY):

Well, and I think that there's something that just happened this week and a few of the members have referenced it, but it involved the Irish comedian and writer Graham Linehan, who was arrested in Britain apparently for social media posts about transgender issues. Did you hear of this circumstance?

Lorcán Price:

Yes, I did. I know Graham personally.

Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY):

Okay. And according to his Substack article, the trouble actually began when he was in America. He was at the airport in Arizona seeking to fly back to Europe, was told that he did not have a seat, was put on a later flight, and when he arrived at Heathrow, he was met by five armed police officers. Our police officers in England typically armed.

Lorcán Price:

They're not, no.

Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY):

So did you find it strange that he would be met by five armed police officers

Lorcán Price:

At airports, counter-terrorism police are usually armed, or there's a special wing of the Metropolitan police that has armed support unit, so

Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY):

Is he considered a terrorist?

Lorcán Price:

We're not clear what provision he was arrested under of legislation, but there is a power in the Terrorism Act to arrest people at airports and seize their devices.

Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY):

Sure. Was he identified as a terrorist because of his online posts?

Lorcán Price:

It's not clear yet if he was arrested under that provision, but it has very wide ranging powers and it is used on occasion to detain people at ports.

Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY):

Okay, I understand that. And that probably is more of a frightening answer than I expected, which is that they've used the power that is typically reserved for terrorists or people who are of grave risk to the country to arrest Mr. Lenin at the airport because of his Twitter posts. Is that right?

Lorcán Price:

It's not clear if they use it yet, but that is a power that frequently that is used to seize people's devices at airports.

Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY):

Can you describe more of what happened with this incident involving Mr. Lenin? Do you have the familiarity with the facts?

Lorcán Price:

I've read his statement, yes. Okay,

Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY):

And could you please explain what happened?

Lorcán Price:

It appears that he was detained on arrival and Heathrow and then arrested, searched, subjected to a long series of questions, most of which revolved around his beliefs on gender, ideology and transgender issues. Some of the questions from the police, according to Mr. Lennon, were extremely ideological in nature and they talked about people who are assigned a gender at birth, which as he pointed out himself is activist language that the police should not be using.

Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY):

So he also claims that his bail conditions was one of the conditions was that he could no longer use x. Is this a tactic you have seen or heard of being used before?

Lorcán Price:

Yes, we've seen extraordinary Baal conditions even placed on clients of our own. We had a client, pastor Dia Moodley, who was given a bail condition that he was not allowed to preach about the differences between Christianity and Islam on the basis that he would be bailed. So we have seen bizarre and wide ranging bail conditions set on people before under speech offense.

Rep. Brad Knott (R-NC):

Time's expired.

Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY):

Okay, thank you.

Rep. Brad Knott (R-NC):

The chair now recognizes the general lady from North Carolina.

Rep. Deborah Ross (D-NC):

Thank you very much and thank you to all the witnesses for your testimony and for your patience. It's been a long hearing. I think it's very timely that we're discussing threats to freedom of speech and innovation in this committee. I do wish we were talking about what's going on in this country right now, but I don't always get what I wish for. Freedom of speech in this country is under threat. There is no question about it, and we haven't talked about this much, so I'm going to focus on it. The essential American ideal of innovation is also under threat and it's enshrined in our constitution and it's being ignored. The gravest threats to speech and innovation are coming not from our democratic European allies, but from the authoritarian and unconstitutional actions of the Trump administration. The Trump administration has embarked on a coordinated crackdown of speech on universities across the country. I represent more than five universities in the research triangle area. I've seen it. The administration illegally froze billions of dollars in federal research grants affecting not just people's health and safety, which is what they were for in the first place, but the economies of places like North Carolina, they forced the resignation of university presidents they don't like, and they threatened to strip universities of patents for discoveries made in their labs unprecedented.

This administration has also refused to restore these important grants which fund research for everything from breast cancer to infant mortality unless the schools allow the government to exert control over faculty hiring academic programs and student admissions. Professor Kaye. How have the Trump administration's attacks on our nation's? Preeminent research universities harmed the ability to innovate.

David Kaye:

I think that's an excellent question and we've seen it across the board, these attacks on universities, and if we think about universities and there is a connection here to freedom of speech. If we think of our universities as the principle engine for the generation of knowledge and the generation of ideas, basically innovation in our country, the administration is going after them in all the ways that you described, and it goes after them not only by withholding grants that have already been awarded, it's also going after them in the context of seeking to shape what the research is, what's actually being taught in the classroom. Those are, I think, very significant interferences with the potential for innovation in our country.

Rep. Deborah Ross (D-NC):

Well, thank you for that. And now to get to the tech issues, because that's kind of underlying what's going on. This hearing is supposed to be about Europe's threat to Big Tech companies, but I'd like you to speak about the threat of Big Tech companies and the AI models that they're creating on intellectual property rights, many of which are protected more strongly in Europe than they are here. How have AI models that scrape everything that they can, whether copyrighted or not impacted innovation and even our newspapers which are having to sue for the copyright, for the content that they create?

David Kaye:

Well, I think this is a pretty complicated area, but I would highlight just to bring it to European regulation for a moment. Whereas the United States has not really gone very far down the path of legislating in this area and finding ways to boost AI's potential for democratic and freedom of expression purposes. Europe has actually adopted an AI act, which again, we might not agree with all of its particulars, but it's aiming to harness the power of AI for democratic purposes and to ensure that AI doesn't have this negative impact on fundamental rights. I think that's an approach that we can learn from actually and that we haven't so far.

Rep. Deborah Ross (D-NC):

And I want to just because I know I only have a second left, I really want to give a lot of credit to Congressman Isa because he has been having excellent hearings on this very issue. But unfortunately, the larger judiciary committee has taken no action, and so I would encourage the larger judiciary committee to follow Congressman ICE's lead about protecting our creators. Thank you. And I yield back.

Rep. Brad Knott (R-NC):

Thank you, representative Ross. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from South Carolina.

Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We're here to talk about ongoing concerns with European censorship, British censorship and its effect on American speech or broader free speech principles that hurt certainly citizens, but American companies both domestically and abroad. What I'm hearing today, at least from the witnesses is rather alarming this Orwellian in nature approach that Europe has taken the hostility to free speech to satire to maybe speech that you disagree with, and I want to talk about that as it pertains to the UK, the EU, and certainly the us. Mr. Price, Prime Minister Starmer said that the UK does not have a free speech problem. Do you agree with that statement?

Lorcán Price:

No, I do not.

Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC):

In what ways do you disagree with the Prime Minister?

Lorcán Price:

We have seen numerous prosecutions in the United Kingdom for totally nonviolent speech. We have clients my own organization is acting for who have been arrested for silently praying, for offering consensual conversations, for preaching about the gospel. And I can go on. There are numerous and numerous examples,

Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC):

12,183 prosecutions I think is at least what I've read. Does that sound about accurate to you?

Lorcán Price:

That sounds accurate.

Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC):

Which is a 50% increase from pre pandemic levels. What does that tell you about maybe the focus of the British government as it pertains to speech right now?

Lorcán Price:

Sadly, it shows that the United Kingdom, just like the rest of Europe, has entered a spiral of censorship and it's getting worse, and it's gotten to the point where even our oldest and closest ally, the United States has had to intervene and point that out. And as I said on numerous occasions, I'm extremely grateful to all of you for doing that. But the problem frankly, is being now compounded and set in stone by things like the DSA from the European Union and the Online Safety Act in the United Kingdom.

Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC):

Well, let's talk about the online safety Act for a second. I think maybe it's intended to protect children, and I think everyone lauds that Mr. Farage talked about that, that nobody right or left wants their child exposed to bad content online, but it's been talked about and you've seen this in your practice, used as a weapon to target speech that maybe the government finds uncomfortable or disagrees with. Is that correct?

Lorcán Price:

Yeah, that's correct. We've seen, for example, section 62, which is designed to protect children being used to censor videos of protests near asylum centers. And so once you reach a point where content is restricted on the basis that it is political, we're moving well out of any kind of zone of protecting children into essentially censorship.

Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC):

Right. So at least in the case of the comedian, the Irish comedian that was recently arrested, I viewed, I was not aware of his content before and looked at it and it seemed to be satirical in nature or maybe hyperbolic and not necessarily to be treated literally. Is that your interpretation of that too?

Lorcán Price:

Yes, in fact, I told Graham Linehan when I was growing up, I wasn't allowed to watch his comedy on tv. Father Ted was the show that he's probably most famous for. So what I would say is he's an excellent satirist and he's in the long tradition of Irish satire, starting with Jonathan Swift really, and all the way up to today.

Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC):

Isn't that part of British society though is like satire is embedded in the culture? You've embraced this for hundreds of years, right? Yeah,

Lorcán Price:

I would just add Irish and British, Irish...

Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC):

And British.

Lorcán Price:

Excuse me. Yes, very much so. Yeah, and it, it's the concept really. I think we haven't seen political extremism in the British Isles in the way that we did in Europe because we have a healthy way of laughing at and poking fun at our leadership. And I think whether it's cartoons about the king in the 18 hundreds all the way up to Father Ted and Graham Linehan's work today, that's a great tradition.

Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC):

Isn't there growing frustration with the Irish people, the British people, maybe broader European cultures, that the government is more focused on speech than it is say the migrant crimes that are happening right under their noses? I mean, that seems to be, from my view across the pond that particularly the British people, they're fed up with the non-enforcement of immigration laws at the expense, or maybe because in large part, they're focused on what people are saying online. Do you share that?

Lorcán Price:

I completely agree with that, and this is the discussion I had with Representative Raskin in London. This is about shutting down growing discontent in Europe with the decisions that our political elites have made, and we've reached a crisis point where it's no longer possible to conceal the level of public anger. And I think these censorship maneuvers are an act of desperation and they won't work.

Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC):

Thank you for that. And radically shifting to Mr. Reed for a second in a different approach in the app industry, does the DMA incentivize Chinese copycat companies to flood the market? And if so, how does that impact American companies in European markets and what are the associated data privacy implications of that? You may finish.

Morgan Reed:

Being aware of the time. Yes, the problem is Article six, section four,

Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC):

You have unlimited time pay no attention to the chairman.

Morgan Reed:

I always pay attention to the chair and the ranking member. The easy idea is Article six, section four, article six, section seven, and even 10. Part of the problem is they basically have must carry provisions, and what that does is open the door part of what small businesses have benefited the most from the existence of these platforms. Again, as I said, this isn't a love affair, it's a business relationship. They opened a door to customers and the customers trust what they're buying on the platform. Article six, section four and section seven really say they must put on anyone's product. And of course the most classic example of that, the first mover under the new DMA was PornHub, which Apple had decided they didn't want porn apps on their app store. And the first one out of the gate to say incorrectly, they claimed it was an Apple approved app, which once again leads to confusion and breaks down trust. That was out of the gate, the first app. And so from my member's perspective, their concern is, Hey, I want to be sold at the store that people feel comfortable buying at. And the more you degrade the quality of experience and the more you degrade or allow it to be broader, we run into a problem. Thank you. I'm sorry for the time. Thank

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

You, Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Rep. Brad Knott (R-NC):

Yes, sir, go ahead.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Apparently the whereabouts of our missing witness have been ascertained. He's appearing on GB News, which I guess is the network he works for outside of the Rayburn building. I just wonder if it would be consistent with the rules and the practice of our committee for us to send someone to invite him to come back because I think we have five or six members who haven't questioned yet. Would that be all right if we sent someone to go alert him that there's still members waiting to do their questioning just out of courtesy and respect for our colleagues? Well,

Rep. Brad Knott (R-NC):

The chair will make note that the witness has appeared voluntarily. He has left voluntarily, but in terms of going and asking him to come back, no objection there.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Okay. If we could do it, if we could find him. And I'd like to submit for the record, this clip from GB News, 'British Free speech Under Threat. Nigel Farage says, UK is an authoritarian state like North Korea.'

Rep. Brad Knott (R-NC):

Without objection. Thank you. Gentleman yield? Yes, sir. The chair recognizes the representative from Vermont.

Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT):

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I spent my August traveling around my state listening to Vermonters tell me what was on their minds. And there was one constant thread, and that was fear and concern for young people, for their safety, for their future. And parents kept asking me, will my kids ever be able to afford a house in this economy? Is it going to be safe for my kid to go to school and are my kids safe online over and over again? And I want to tell you about one conversation I had with a high school student in Vermont who said to me, we all know that social media on our phones is hurting us, and in some instances it's literally killing us. And what he wanted to say is, what are you doing about it? What are you doing about it? And I have to ask myself the same question because I'm a parent, I'm a former teacher, I'm now a member of Congress, and what are we actually doing to solve the problem to stand up for our kids?

And it's clear we need real attention on this. We need to focus our attention and we do need to regulate corporations behind these problems. And we need real public oversight. Yes, over the gun makers, yes, over financial speculators, but also Big Tech because polls show across the country, Americans overwhelmingly want us to take action on the harms that are hurting their kids. And yet here we are first hearing back, we're not talking about the AI platforms that are leading kids to self-harm. We're not talking about the algorithms profiting off of teens eating disorders. We're not working together to hold Big Tech accountable. No, we're here talking about how other countries are being too mean to Big Tech. It's gross. Professor Kaye, thanks for being here. Can you briefly describe how the EU's Digital Services Act regulates social media content for children?

David Kaye:

So the DSA is a very big piece of legislation, a big regulation, but it gets to exactly the point that you're making, which is the DSA is the result of a years long process of democratically Europe trying to figure out what's the response to the massive power of Big Tech over their information environments. And so to give one example, they provide a mechanism that actually requires those companies that are considered the very largest platforms and search engines to do an assessment of the risk that they cause in the context of illegal content, which could include child sexual abuse material that is really only doing that basic risk assessment that we should imagine all companies would do. Exactly. And then based on that they're supposed to, they're actually obligated to take mitigating

Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT):

Measures

David Kaye:

Against them. That's one example.

Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT):

Yeah. I mean this is bare minimum stuff here, right? Bare minimum risk assessment. What are we subjecting our children to?

David Kaye:

Correct.

Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT):

And so in your assessment, does the EU prioritize protecting kids and teens from content related to suicide and self-harm?

David Kaye:

So the DSA is not content specific. It doesn't require any company, for example, to take down any particular kind of content, but in the risk assessment provision, it's pretty clear and if you read the negotiating history around the DSA as well, it's pretty clear that this is one of the key issues that concerns Europeans and thus concerned the regulation as it was adopted.

Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT):

Thank you. I really appreciate you being here to balance this out. So look, we got to follow the money here. Okay. I want to draw your attention here to the visual here. Okay. Trump Inauguration fund Amazon a million, meta a million, Google a million, Microsoft a million, apple a million, open ai, a million, and the list goes on. This hearing is not about making the internet a safer place for kids. It's about harassing Europeans who are trying to do something, something. No, it's imperfect, but they're trying something and we sit here twiddling our thumbs. There has never been a more important time than now to create some basic rules for Big Tech. Our kids are more important than these billionaires and their shareholders, period. If we truly want to protect our kids, we have to push back on unrestrained corporate power and try to retain some moral clarity in this moment. I was told I would have more time because there was a member that went over by a minute.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Sure, go right ahead.

Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT):

We should be looking at any country around the globe who is actually trying to do something and no, should we copy exactly what they're doing? No, but we shouldn't stick our heads in the sand and say, oh, there's nothing we can do here. We cannot maintain the status quo and then go back to our constituents and look these parents in the eye and say that we're actually doing our jobs. The solutions are right in front of us. If we would actually do the work here in this committee and I yield back,

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

The general lady yields back. I would just remind the general lady that Mr. Zuckerberg from Meta sent this committee a letter a year ago, August of last year, saying that the Biden administration pressured them to censor. They did it. They're sorry. They're not going to do it again, and they've changed policy. I said that in my opening statement. So we do think this committee has had a huge impact on protecting free speech. The gentle lady from Florida is recognized for five minutes.

Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Today we are examining a growing threat the way that Europe and the UK are using so-called digital safety and competition laws to undermine American values and American innovation. The EU Digital Services Act in the UK's Online Safety Act go far beyond legitimate regulation. They empower foreign bureaucrats to label political dissent, even ordinary phrases like take back our country as hate speech, and they pressure US platforms to apply those censorship rules globally. At the same time, the EU's Digital Markets Act and the UK's DMCC deliberately single out American technology companies for punitive treatment, forcing them to share proprietary data and subsidize less innovative rivals. These laws are protectionist by design and they put American jobs innovation and free speech at risk. Congress has a duty to push back. We must ensure that foreign governments cannot dictate what Americans are allowed to say online, nor use regulatory schemes and backdoor taxes on our most successful industries.

I look forward to hearing from you you all today and appreciate your testimony Mr. Price. I'm a former American judge and as such, I know that laws must have clear defined terms in order to be applied impartially and fairly and consistently. I'd like to return to the discussion of the OSA and specifically the requirement under which that for speech to be censored as a false communication, it must cause non-trivial psychological or physical harm. Would you share with us your perspective on the use of phrases such as non-trivial psychological harm and your view of whether it is possible for these terms to be applied uniformly fairly and consistently?

Lorcán Price:

Good question. I'm afraid I really can't, and you've hit the nail on the head really, in terms of your question. These terms are extremely vague and it's a longstanding principle of the common law that vagueness in the criminal law is repugnant.

Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL):

And so sir, is it your view that this is actually an appropriate or even enforceable regulatory scheme?

Lorcán Price:

It's not appropriate, but they certainly intend to enforce it. Thank you,

Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL):

Mr. Reed. I'd like to turn back to the DMAs application to our companies and the concept of gatekeepers, which we touched on earlier today. Would you please describe how that operates and how these regulations are creating an unfair competitive advantage for European and Chinese firms at the expense of American companies?

Morgan Reed:

Well, I think the primary problem with the way that the EU has set up the gatekeeper requirements is it's driving the largest companies to essentially pull back on the tools they build for my members from the frameworks that they build for the small businesses. Ironically, oftentimes these small guys are the ones that are going to compete with them because it allows them to say, well, in order to comply with the DMA, we need to remove various functions. And this isn't a hypothetical. What we've seen so far in our discussions is they want to remove link throughs, they want to remove other elements that they see as essentially keeping power in a few of the big companies. The irony is, of course, the small guy, not the medium-sized guy, not the billionaire, but the truly small guys actually need that foothold to step up. And so what it creates is an environment where, sure, there'll be some billionaire companies that will do well out of the DMA, but the thousandaires, those of us who are trying to get to that next level are the ones who get crushed between the two giants.

Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL):

Thank you. I yield the balance of my time to the chairman.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Hi. Thank you, Mr. Price. I just want to make sure I understand exactly what's happening. A pastor gets arrested for what he said, but the guys who attacked him don't. Lucy Conley said things that she shouldn't have? Probably not, probably definitely would Mr. Frost say in temperate statements, but she took 'em down. She got more prison time than young violent offenders got. And Ms. Rose Doherty, I believe, was praying silently outside and she got charged. Is that all accurate?

Lorcán Price:

The only point I would add is Rose Doherty, 74-year-old grandmother was arrested for holding a sign that said here to talk only if you want.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Oh, so praying silent, not saying just a sign, right, just a sign, sir. Oh, wow. Wow. And if an American comments on this in a way that the DSA defines as disinformation, misinformation hate speech, they can have their speech taken down as well. Is that accurate?

Lorcán Price:

That is entirely accurate within the terms of the DSA.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

That's the state of play. Mr. Reed, I would just point out when Ms. Virkunnen, the lady who took Mr. Breton's place when she was here talking about how the digital markets act could impact companies, she said, we don't have anyone in Europe complaining about the law. And my response was That's because you don't have any companies the way you define it according to Mr. Price, and you understand it only includes American companies and

Morgan Reed:

One Chinese company. Is that right? Well, the irony is, is there are a lot of smaller European companies that are complaining about the DMA, not the idea that they need a competitive landscape. It's that it focuses on entirely the wrong thing. You hit it on the head. A lot of our members come here to get money to go back there to build products.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Yep. I'm sorry. They called votes. I do want to move quickly and I shouldn't have went over. Mr. Garcia is recognized.

Rep. Jesús "Chuy" García (D-IL):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We're here today for two reasons. One, because Republicans are in the pocket of Big Tech and two, they want to distract us on their war on free speech and expression in the us. We all remember Trump's inauguration, the tech oligarchs were all there, Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Cook, Pichai, and they looked like they won the presidency because they did and they got what they paid for. Since taking office, Trump put out an AI action plan that could have been written by Big Tech, dropped enforcement provisions against tech companies and tried to unlawfully fire two FTC commissioners who fought to hold these companies accountable. By the way, one successfully got back to work today, first day back. That's Rebecca Slaughter. Trump and his loyalists in Congress are also serving their corporate overlords by attacking the countries that actually try to reign in Big Tech.

That's not innovation, that's corruption and oligarchy. The American people do not want corruption and oligarchy. They want leaders who have the backbone to stand up to Big Tech to stop massive surveillance and protect data privacy and uphold freedom of speech. But the people least qualified to talk about freedom of expression are the ones that currently are cracking down on the First Amendment. As my colleagues have described, Trump and his fellow Republicans have banned words that the federal government can use. They've extorted media companies to punish news coverage they don't like, and they've weaponized the immigration system against people who have other views. They've suppressed economic data and other information that contradicts the propaganda machine and targeted medical research even. And museum exhibits all because they're afraid of words, history and the truth. At the same time, Republicans are leading a historic crackdown, an expression, and they're holding propaganda hearings like this and telling us to reject the evidence of our eyes and ears. Mr. K, thank you for being here today. As I mentioned, this administration is using the immigration system to suppress speech as we've seen Mahmood, Khalil, Molson, Madi, Mario Guevara, and many others being targeted and detained because of their speech and in Guevara's case his reporting. Could you please comment on the ongoing weaponization of immigration to trample freedom of expression?

David Kaye:

Yes. Each of those examples are accurate and I think that as we've heard so many different examples of crackdowns or alleged crackdowns on different kinds of speech in the UK or in Europe or in the United States, we just have to be honest that there are crackdowns happening in the United States. It's entirely accurate to say these kinds of content-based restrictions and punishments in the US are very serious interferences with freedom of expression. And it would just be important to acknowledge that as we're talking about other kinds of restrictions as well.

Rep. Jesús "Chuy" García (D-IL):

Thank you for that. It's really important that we not allow arsonists to pretend that they're firefighters and we must not let Republican lives prevail. I yield back.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Gentlemen yields back. We'll do one more then. Unfortunately we'll have to recess for votes and I know you guys have been sitting there for three hours. You need well-deserved restroom break. We'll see We've got some refreshments for you back there. Hopefully Mr. Harris has recognized and won't take a quick recess.

Rep. Mark Harris (R-NC):

Thank you Mr. Chairman, and thank you for this important issue and to all of you that have shared on this panel today, greatly appreciate your patience. Excuse me in your thoughtful answers. I've served as a pastor for 36 years and so obviously I have a heightened sensitivity to the whole issue of when governments and institutions begin to talk about hate speech and the censorship of hate speech. And I guess one of the questions that I'm concerned about today, and I'll ask you Mr. Price, because of your experience in this area, particularly with a DF, would you consider posting a Bible verse hate speech?

Lorcán Price:

No.

Rep. Mark Harris (R-NC):

And is saying there are only two genders hate speech.

Lorcán Price:

I certainly wouldn't consider that hate speech.

Rep. Mark Harris (R-NC):

And so yet the UK's Online Safety Act, among other things is requiring companies to take actions against content which quote incites hatred against people. And I guess my question is again, Mr. Price, who is in charge of determining what constitutes content which incites hatred against people?

Lorcán Price:

The regulator of the Online Safety Act is off calm, which is the statutory body, and the legislation itself includes what they call priority content. That's content that would be age restricted, encompasses things that are illegal in real life, not online. The problem with that is that our pastor Dia Moody that I mentioned earlier, he was threatened. He was arrested under the Public Order Act, which talks about stirring up religious hatred for comparing Islam and Christianity and so on. The basis that the Online Safety Act restricts something that's deemed to be a crime outside that kind of content would be restricted. And I think that's extraordinary overreach

Rep. Mark Harris (R-NC):

And is hate speech objective.

Lorcán Price:

This is where I might just pick up on something Professor Kaye said earlier in relation to hate speech, the problem with it is it's a tautology saying that incitement to hatred is speech that creates hatred. There have been attempts by the UN like the at plan of action to try and on the prosecution side set out a more clear framework on it. But as far as European courts are concerned, I think that their jurisprudence in this area is essentially incoherent.

Rep. Mark Harris (R-NC):

Right. Well, obviously I oppose any hateful rhetoric that's expressed online, but at the end of the day, it's not the job of governments to police bad speech, especially when we'll never be able to agree on what actually constitutes bad speech. And at the end of the day, the best remedy for bad speech is good speech, not censorship in my opinion, but I'll also ask, there is currently a clash between social media platforms that value free speech and the laws of the UK causing some companies to alter their terms of service and Mr. Price, our American social media companies expected to comply with UK's Online Safety Act.

Lorcán Price:

Yes, sir, they are.

Rep. Mark Harris (R-NC):

And how does this impact the way in which companies set their terms of service?

Lorcán Price:

We've seen this again and again when it comes to regulations from European regulators, either from Brussels or London, where companies, of course commercial enterprises setting and designing a system that complies with EU law often means setting something for their entire operations globally. And we saw that again and again with GDPR. Every time you have to click, I don't want cookies something and Americans are exposed to this. That's as a result of it's complicated enough process but of European regulation reaching into your online activity.

Rep. Mark Harris (R-NC):

Well, again, this is a critically important issue and you've done some incredible work. I know with Alliance Defending Freedom and I know Mr. Price, you defended witnesses criminally charged for pre their abortion clinics. One of those examples was Father Sean Goff, a Catholic priest who was charged for praying and holding a sign that read Praying for Free Speech UK authorities allege that silent prayer near abortion clinics constitutes an attempt to coerce women who are considering abortions. And I just ask, is silent prayer coercive?

Lorcán Price:

No, sir.

Rep. Mark Harris (R-NC):

And should silent prayer in holding signs result in legal consequences?

Lorcán Price:

Absolutely not.

Rep. Mark Harris (R-NC):

So when pro-life activists are prosecuted for engaging in peaceful prayer and protest, what kind of message does that send to other pro-life activists in the UK?

Lorcán Price:

I think it shows an extreme degree of intolerance. It shows police overreach and ultimately we have to go back systemically. The problem is these laws that are being created, they're incredibly vague overbroad, whether it's by European regulators or UK regulators, and they're having a real impact on people's lives and their human right to free speech.

Rep. Mark Harris (R-NC):

Well, as this committee has discussed previously, the FACE act here in the United States has been used to go after pro-lifers, and I just pray we don't reach the point that such activists are arrested for silence prayer as we've seen there. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back,

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Gentlemen yields back. The committee will stand in recess for 15 minutes, more or less restrooms and refreshments in the back for you guys. Thank you so much. Committee will come to order. We have a few more. Again, I want to thank our witnesses. You've been very patient. Very good. We appreciate you being here. We're going to start with the gentleman from Wisconsin. Then we'll go to gentleman from North Carolina unless a member of the Minority Party shows up, then we'll go with them and we'll finish up from there. So the gentleman from Wisconsin is recognized for five minutes.

Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI):

It's my opinion. First of all, I had a few comments I wanted to have for Mr. Farang.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Mr. Farage.

Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI):

Do we call it before you left, and I have always known the, there's certain things you think about the English. I know we can't stereotype today, but we're going to, when you think of the English, you think of irreverence, you think of accepting of eccentricities, right? You think of their dry sense of humor. There is no, if we had to crack down on free speech in any country in the world, the country would lose the most in is if we cracked down on free speech in England because they are great they, they're just a general comment. Now, Mr. Price, there are a variety of things we're trying to get at in this hearing, and some of it is financial and how regulations can hurt companies, but I think the most important thing is to wake up the world and what's going on in Britain and other countries in Europe.

I don't think the average American is aware of that and it's important they'd be aware of it because I think in general, stupid idiot ideas begin in Europe and then they go to California, New York and then they seep their way across the United States. And this idea that we can crack down on free speech, I would like you Mr. Price, just to go through a few examples, including the examples of that poor gal who wind up in prison. Don't be afraid to not be able to say what she said because we're still in America. It's still a free country. What do you say to wind up having to go to prison for in Britain today? Exactly. What do you have to say? Well, you're still in the us.

Lorcán Price:

Yes sir. I am going back to the UK though and after what happened to my fellow Irishman, Graham Lenin, and I might just be careful. One thing I would say is that the overbroad laws that we've been discussing and the implementation or the enforcement of the law has reached a point where we now have perfectly legitimate speech being caught up in criminal prosecutions. So for a Christian pastor like Dia Moodley in the city of Bristol, it's a perfectly natural thing to answer a question from a member of the public about the differences between Christianity and Islam and the fact that he was ultimately arrested under the Public Order Act there for stirring up religious hatred, which a charge they later dropped and not the people who were assaulting him gives us an idea of how bad things have gotten in the UK. And we were delighted of course, that Vice President Vance in his Munich security conference speech drew attention to this other class of cases involving prosecutions for praying silently or for holding a sign, offering consensual conversations in the vicinity of abortion clinics, which is an extraordinary assault on freedom of speech and I would say freedom of religion as well.

Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI):

Okay. When I was looking this up, I didn't know what she said. Apparently she was critical of a mass murder whose ancestors came from Rwanda. It's now against the law to point that out in Great Britain. Apparently,

Lorcán Price:

Yes, that's the case of Lucy Connolly. Lucy Connolly tweeted tweet where some of us, I think most people would probably disagree with what she said. She disagreed with it herself. She took it down three and a half hours later. It was as Mr. Farage said, in a moment of great tension and great personal stress. And for that, she received a 31 32 months sentence and she has been released since. But she was prevented from attending this hearing, which I think is a real shame.

Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI):

Last week in the United States we had a horrible murder and I think it was a Catholic school in Minnesota. The murderer happened to be a transgender. Would that be illegal to point out in England

Lorcán Price:

If you could very readily see that it could be regarded strong criticism of that community.

Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI):

He was a very angry person. Could we point out that maybe that had something to do with transgender? Could people have that opinion written?

Lorcán Price:

If I were advising people, and this is the chilling effect in action, I would say think very carefully before posting criticism of what happened, that tragedy in the school in England, because you could be accused very easily of stirring up hatred against a group of people

Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI):

Stirring up hatred. I mean, that's just preposterous. What is hatred? I don't even know what hatred is.

Lorcán Price:

This is an ongoing discussion among lawyers in relation to defense.

Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI):

Defense. Just so you know it, your understanding, your understanding, Mr. Reed, is there any doesn't, free speech means I can say things that maybe imply hate somebody, can I hate somebody? Is that against the law? No,

Morgan Reed:

Really. I think that's a question that Mr. Price is probably better to handle.

Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI):

Controversial, maybe I can't, well, thank God I'm the type of person who's never hated anybody in my life, but if I was a different sort of person, would it be against the law to say I hate somebody?

Lorcán Price:

The difficulty with it is that we've seen again and again, legitimate Christian beliefs being described as hatred when it comes to the definition of marriage, when it comes to sexual relations,

Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI):

Would it be the easiest thing is just to enforce the First Amendment and say, we can say whatever we want to say. Go back to old English.

Lorcán Price:

What I would say is you're well blessed in this country to have the extraordinary protections of the First Amendment, and I really do wish we had something similar in Europe.

Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI):

Next time you get back to Europe, straight amount kick in the butt. Okay, thanks. Yes, sir.

Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL):

Gentleman yields back, gentle lady from Texas who joined us for part of our visit to European to Europe. We appreciate that. Recognized for five minutes?

Rep. Jasmine Felicia Crockett (D-TX):

Yes. I hate that I didn't get to reminisce with our good friend, Mr. Farage. But nevertheless, it's interesting that we're sitting here and we're talking about the so-called threats to the First Amendment when the biggest threat to free speech right now is the old guy that is sitting over in the oval. Now, Mr. Farra and I met over a month ago, and he has made it a brand of being this free speech warrior. And one of the things that I wanted to recap was the fact that he literally tried to shut down my ranking member as he was engaging in his own free speech. It seems like it's more so free speech for me, but not for thee a lot of times with certain people. And it's sad that he had to run and have lunch with Trump or to go raise some money for his four member party. So Mr. Price, you get to be the lucky one to help me figure out what exactly free Speech Advocates believe. It's good to see you again. You tell me whether these government actions support free speech or suppress it, let's call it free speech or federal suppression finding or defending or defunding news outlets or companies because they don't share a particular political message.

Lorcán Price:

I'm not entirely sure what context you're referring to. I think I'd need a little bit more information.

Rep. Jasmine Felicia Crockett (D-TX):

So long story short, if they decide that they are going to find or defund any news outlet simply because it doesn't necessarily go far left or far right, do you think that that is a violation of free speech?

Lorcán Price:

Well, I'm not entirely sure how it would connect with, let's say the area of expertise that I have. I think you may be referring to the PBS controversy. It's probably not something that I would be able to really,

Rep. Jasmine Felicia Crockett (D-TX):

Not necessarily, but let me go to Professor Kaye. Professor Kaye, did you understand my question? Finding or defunding news outlets or companies because they don't share a particular political message.

David Kaye:

Yeah. Thank you for the question. At the very core of the First Amendment is a prohibition of viewpoint discrimination and what you described sounds like viewpoint discrimination.

Rep. Jasmine Felicia Crockett (D-TX):

So it definitely sounds like federal suppression. If you require news outlets and companies to have content moderators to ensure their coverage promotes a political ideology or leaning, would that be federal suppression?

David Kaye:

Well, that does sound like an interference with a company's content moderation decision

Rep. Jasmine Felicia Crockett (D-TX):

Banning materials because of their content.

David Kaye:

Materials.

Rep. Jasmine Felicia Crockett (D-TX):

Yes. So like books.

David Kaye:

Oh, of course. Well, and we've seen this in the range of book bans, libraries across the country.

Rep. Jasmine Felicia Crockett (D-TX):

Absolutely. What about threatening private companies with lawsuits or fines unless they do the government's bidding?

David Kaye:

It sounds like pressure that would be undue. Yes.

Rep. Jasmine Felicia Crockett (D-TX):

Okay, so I agree with you. All of these actions are exactly what Trump has done since he's taken office. Make no mistake, Trump is weaponizing his idea of free speech to force folks and companies to become his political puppets to promote his propaganda. Trump and Republicans defunded NPR because they argued it was bias. Trump has removed books discussing racial discrimination at US military academies, including the amazing Maya Angelo's autobiography, I Know why the Caged Bird Sings. He's tried to strip funding to schools across the country if they don't remove materials that include discussions of racial discrimination or that promote diversity. And in order for the merger between Paramount and Skydance to happen, the FCC chairman and Republican appointed commissioners required Skydance to establish a bias monitor. And in its FCC order noted reports concerning negative media coverage of the Trump administration. This is to say nothing of Trump pushing television networks to get rid of comedians and talk show hosts who criticized his administration, say like Mr. Colbert, let's call this what it is. It's Trump weaponizing the idea of free speech to force people, institutions, and companies to be his mouthpieces. This ain't free speech is propaganda. Meanwhile, my Republican colleagues are out here having a meltdown over the European bill, one that by the way, includes provisions to fight child trafficking. It's frustrating because we talk about being fiscally responsible and we talk about free speech. And right now as we're having these discussions, who's trying to shut down members from voting in the way that they want to vote, it's the President who literally said he would look at anyone who decided that they were going to vote to release the Epstein files as hostile. That sounds like a threat as it relates to all First Amendment protections in addition to the fact that it's literally contravening our constitutional duty that we sworn an oath to because we don't swear to an orange King. Instead, we have sworn an oath to the Constitution and we were elected to represent the people that elected us. Thank you so much.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Gentlemen, lady yields, gentlemen from North Carolina's recognized.

Rep. Brad Knott (R-NC):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, to the witnesses, thank you all for being here. This is a very important topic. When we look at what's going on in Europe and because of what's going on in Europe, what's happening by extension around the world, when we look at the encroachments on freedom of expression, freedom of speech, it's is chilling. And it's remarkable that the countries that gave birth to the Western civilization that we all enjoy are really becoming totalitarian and even points of expression that are organic to the United States or statements made while in the United States can result in being arrested Once you return to Europe, if this was noted 15 to 20 years ago, people would not believe it. And listening to the witnesses here who are on the ground, who are dealing with these totalitarian measures in Europe, it's worth noting to anyone who listens that they are thanking the president of the United States. They are begging the president, they're begging the Vice President and the Secretary of State to continue doing what they're doing, fighting this repression that's going on in Europe. And we've heard testimony that economic liberty is diminishing, freedom of opinion is diminishing, freedom of expression is gone. Increased scrutiny of online comments, Twitter, Facebook or X, excuse me, it's gone all under the mantra of safety and Mr. Price, I want to talk to you first. You said that these points of legislation are really aimed at protecting youth.

How exactly are the proponents of these restrictive measures? How are they making the argument that they're protecting youth?

Lorcán Price:

Yes, that's the argument they make, sir. Essentially, particularly if we look at the Online Safety Act, it's the premise is that safety requires various kind of restrictions such as age verification. And what that doesn't affect is that it means that miners aren't allowed to access certain content. But there's two types of content. One is what they call primary priority content, which is the worst kind of things that we would all agree is wrongful. But then there's also priority or primary content, which would include things that I think are otherwise lawful that people should be allowed to access, particularly in the United Kingdom where the proposal now is to give, I think it's being passed or it's in the process, 16 year olds the vote who would then be prevented from seeing certain content under the Online Safety Act.

Rep. Brad Knott (R-NC):

In terms of some of the examples you've mentioned that give me concern, it doesn't seem as though there's too much restriction for modern gender theory transgenderism aimed at children or graphic or explicit material aimed at children, but there are restrictions on pointing out verses of scripture or biblical truths that people adhere to. You can't discuss that online. How does that factor into the protection of the child?

Lorcán Price:

I think your point is well made. It's worth noting, and it often strikes me that smartphones with internet access have been available, released. The iPhone was launched in 2008, and there were no immediate actions by governments or regulators to try and protect children from content. It's only after the election of Donald Trump and Brexit that there was suddenly an enormous effort at the European level to crack down on content in the name of safety. But I suspect as I say that there's an underlying political justification.

Rep. Brad Knott (R-NC):

So what's the goal? I mean, we've talked about the diminishing prosperity. The freedom is gone, there's diminished enjoyment of life, there's diminished humor, there's zero free flowing information. What's the goal? Besides complete political power?

Lorcán Price:

I certainly think the goal, as you allude to is narrative control. Information is the first and most important as we're quantity in a democracy. That's how we make our decisions based on what we hear. And if you can restrict the amount of information that people hear or you can channel in one direction, then you influence the democracy. And as I say, there's increasing discontent in Europe about the direction of travel in so many areas. And I do believe that the DSA, like the German Network Enforcement Act and other related legislation is part of a serious effort to control the narrative.

Rep. Brad Knott (R-NC):

And it's basically a tool of progressivism to silence, dissent, and to move the agenda forward. Is that correct? That's what I'm gleaning from the conversation today.

Lorcán Price:

And certainly in a lot of our work, it has gone that way. It seems that Christians are disproportionately targeted. There was a dissenting opinion by the Polish judge in a case called Dora Sabba before the European Court of Human Rights in 2022, where he made the observation that when it comes to speech, those who are critics of Islam seem to be prosecuted and do not have the protections of the right to freedom of expression. Whereas Christians, people who are critical of Christianity are prosecuted and they suddenly are entitled to free speech in that context. So in the UK, we often call this two-tier policing, and I think there's a two-tier approach to human rights. Certainly the Polish judge did, and I agree with them.

Rep. Brad Knott (R-NC):

Interesting. Mr. Kaye, just briefly in regards to the points that you've made, I appreciate what you've said. I appreciate your perspectives. Would you admit at this point that the Biden administration was involved in suppressing information as it related to various components of the COVID response, the COVID treatment plans, the vaccines efficacy, and so forth?

David Kaye:

No. That is just not something I know.

Rep. Brad Knott (R-NC):

You wouldn't stipulate to that. I know you criticized Mr. Zuckerberg for saying that the government leaned heavily on social media companies to remove content as it related to COVID. So you do not think that the government was engaged in suppressing information in any way?

David Kaye:

Well, we know there was because there's Supreme Court cases around this where the allegation was that officials in both administrations, the Trump and Biden administrations did put some pressure on the companies in terms of public health messaging. There's no question about that. I think the court found that that didn't constitute unlawful pressure or coercion, but clearly those kinds of messages were part of the period of

Rep. Brad Knott (R-NC):

Condemn...

David Kaye:

2020, 2021.

Rep. Brad Knott (R-NC):

You condemn that. Do you affirm that action by regulating content or no?

David Kaye:

Do I...

Rep. Brad Knott (R-NC):

Do you affirm the motivations or the actions of the Biden administration to suppress the COVID discussions?

David Kaye:

No, I think there needs to be clear back and forth and information sharing between government and the largest platforms that shape the information environment. Of course, you don't want coercion, but I think you have to find the balance where that kind of back and forth can exist.

Rep. Brad Knott (R-NC):

Well, I'm sure you're aware that they say they were coerced by the Biden administration. I think it appears to be a partisan interpretation when you say that it was reasonable what Biden did with Facebook with X and so forth.

David Kaye:

Well, I mean, we could go back and forth, but my view is that that wasn't coercion, actually.

Rep. Brad Knott (R-NC):

If you could say, if you could type on Facebook, 'these vaccines do not work.' Would that have been allowed?

David Kaye:

I think it would honestly....

Rep. Brad Knott (R-NC):

It would be stripped.

David Kaye:

I think it would depend on when we're talking about.

Rep. Brad Knott (R-NC):

Under Biden, it would've been stripped. I'm sorry, our time's up, but yeah. Anyway.

David Kaye:

Mr. Chairman, may I have just one very brief?

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Of course.

David Kaye:

Yeah. Thank you. I just want to make one point about hate speech because there's been a lot of discussion about hate speech here, and I think it's valuable for us to at least understand the basis for where these hate speech laws come from. Most of the language from the international law and hate speech, particularly in Europe, was a result of the use of propaganda to target Jews and others during the Nazi Holocaust. So quite a bit of the hate speech is actually a response to that history. And I think at least acknowledging that that is a part of the cultural freedom of expression background in Europe is useful so that it's not just a kind of bullying of Europeans, but also an understanding of where they come from.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

But Mr. Price made the point, I think his last comments made the point about a two-tiered system, which they see versus how certain Christians get treated versus how people of a different faith get treated. And if you even use that term to tiered system, you can be criticized for using the term about something that many people think exists currently in the UK and in the eu. So there's been lots of comments there. I'll give the chairman the ranking members some time. And I got maybe one last question, one last point I would like to make.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Thanks. And this is just for uc request, Mr. Chairman, because you had mentioned the outreach that you'd gotten from Mark Zuckerberg, and this is an article about that met to pay 25 million to settle 2021 Trump lawsuit. And the sentence that stuck out to me was the president and litigation had to be resolved before Zuckerberg could be brought into the tent. One of the people said, so just want to introduce

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Without objection.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

And one of the thing is just the Supreme Court decision, Murthy versus the Missouri disproving, the government's censorship claims.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Okay. Without objection. I'll just make one maybe final point. It's been brought up several times, I believe. Well, I'll ask all of you. Mr. Kaye, has President Trump banned any books in the country? Are you aware of any?

David Kaye:

I don't know about him specifically, but I do know that, for example...

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Mr. Price do you know if President Trump has banned any books?

Lorcán Price:

I'm not aware that he has.

David Kaye:

From defense libraries, books on Martin Luther King have actually been removed.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Mr. Reed, President Trump banned any books. I mean, my understanding, the way it works is you've got a local library board, you got a local school board, and they may say certain books aren't appropriate for kids, which is frankly the argument they use in the EU on the Digital Services Act and UK on the Online Safety Act. No president's banning books. They're just saying local library board are saying second graders should maybe not see certain things that adults can see.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Mr. Chairman, if I could follow up on that. Sure. Just because I've got constituents who are in the service abroad and there are schools called DoDEA Schools, Department of Defense Schools, and there was an executive order applying to the Department of Defense and they shut down the school libraries there. These are federal schools, not local schools, federal schools, and they stripped all kinds of books from there. And there have been protests throughout Europe by American families over there saying that they don't want 1984 and Handmaid's Tale to be stripped from the schools. I mentioned that actually in my opening statement.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

I want to thank each of our witnesses for being here today. Appreciate your patience and appreciate you being five hours. Thank you very much. And this concludes today's hearing. We thank our witnesses for appearing before the committee today with Objection. All members will have five legislative days to submit additional written questions for the witnesses or additional materials for the record.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD):

Can I say one more thing? Mr. Chairman, in praise of you, I might've designed it differently, but I want to thank you for organizing a very interesting trip for us in this hearing as well.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH):

Without objection. Thank you. Without objection, the hearing is adjourned.