An interesting development in the US. We’ll have to keep an eye on this because more than likely we’ll need to access it. 😒

(An excerpt from today’s Coffee and Covid)

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This might be the most delicious post-pandemic irony yet. On Wednesday, Reuters reported, “Exclusive: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere.” The new website features an animated Paul Revere riding across the top. “Freedom is Coming,” it says:

The U.S. State Department is deploying an online portal at freedom.gov that will let people in Europe and elsewhere access content banned by their governments— including content labeled “hate speech” or “terrorist propaganda” under EU law. The portal is headed by Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers. (‘Sarah Rogers’ is also a minor superhero in the Marvel Universe— Captain America’s daughter. Probably unrelated. They do look alike, though.)

Officials have reportedly discussed a VPN feature that could help user traffic appear to originate in the U.S., which has a battered but still-functioning Constitution. In other words, local police won’t be able to trace Facebook posts about illegal immigration to the British citizens who posted them.

This is what I call a “reverse play.” Since the Cold War, the U.S. has deployed information freedom tools for people in authoritarian regimes like China, Iran, and those behind the Iron Curtain, mostly using radio. Now it’s doing the same for Western Europe, but on digital steroids. The State Department officially denied having a “censorship-circumvention program specific to Europe,” but did confirm that global digital freedom is a State Department priority.

The battle against government censorship is beginning to spill outside U.S. borders. This week, Mike Benz went viral on X, pointing out that Europe’s censorship NGOs complained bitterly that their names weren’t redacted in the House Judiciary GOP’s recent bombshell report on Europe’s censorship campaign— in other words, they were literally asking to be censored about being censors. The irony was noted.

Alongside that, the pending GRANITE Act (Global Reach and Accountability of Networks in the Information Technology Era) is a proposed law that would let Americans and American companies sue foreign entities —like EU regulators— in U.S. courts for overreaching content moderation targeting U.S. platforms. It seems fair, since the EU has been fining American companies like X for not censoring citizens’ speech.

The Europeans claim they aren’t censoring anybody. But, for example, Reuters reported that in 2024 alone, Germany issued 482 removal orders and forced providers to take down 16,771 pieces of content. I guess “censorship” has become one of those flexible progressive terms, like gender. There are, apparently, many different kinds of censorship.

According to “sources,” DOGE prodigy Edward “Big Balls” Coristine is also involved in the project. That young man stays busy, doesn’t he?

Last week on Valentine’s Day, at the annual Munich Security Conference, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a group of assembled E.U. officials and military that, “We in America have no interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the West’s managed decline.” Rubio was announcing the rescue mission.

In June 1940, Winston Churchill delivered one of his most famous speeches to a country facing an imminent existential threat from fulminant fascism. He vowed the British would fight everywhere: on the beaches, in the hedgerows, in the Halal markets, at the Buc-ee’s and the marijuana dispensaries, and so on. (He might have added, “on Facebook.”) Then, he promised, after all else failed, a champion would arrive from across the sea.

We will fight, Churchill said, “until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.” He meant America. And once again, we are coming. Hang on, European cousins. After we finish saving ourselves, we will come and save you, too.

https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=463409&post_id=188493708&utm_source=post-email-title&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=jdw0f&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjozMjU2MDcxOSwicG9zdF9pZCI6MTg4NDkzNzA4LCJpYXQiOjE3NzE1MTE4MjYsImV4cCI6MTc3NDEwMzgyNiwiaXNzIjoicHViLTQ2MzQwOSIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.XkBLT2s44mpwtTcTX5xi696PN1A9Nx7D9fqRmsZALxU