The United States is working on an online portal that will enable users abroad to view digital content banned by local regulations, according to sources, a move that is likely to increase tensions between the US and Europe on issues of regulating speech on the internet.
The US State Department has been working on the project as part of its efforts to promote what it calls “digital freedom,” three sources said.
The website, which will be operated under the domain freedom.gov, will allow users in Europe and other parts of the world to view online content that has been banned by local regulations in their countries, including content that is classified as hate speech or extremist propaganda.
The project is a manifestation of the growing policy gap between the United States and some European nations regarding the regulation of online speech.
While the United States has broad constitutional safeguards that generally protect speech from government regulation, many European nations have laws that regulate some aspects of speech, influenced by the post-World War II need to suppress the dissemination of extremist ideologies.
As per the sources, the project has been considered to include privacy tools that would protect the identities of users.
There was a plan to include a virtual private network, or VPN, feature that would allow users’ traffic to be directed through servers that seemed to be based in the United States.
The sources reported that the internal discussions highlighted that the activity of users on the website would not be tracked.
The project has been supervised by Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers.
According to officials, they had planned to roll out the service last week at the Munich Security Conference, an annual event where political and security officials meet. However, the launch did not happen.
Read Also: How Jesse Jackson Redefined US Presidential Politics
Two people familiar with the matter said that some officials at the State Department had raised concerns about the plan.
They refused to say what those concerns were. A spokesperson for the department denied this, saying that reports of legal concerns were not true and that no launch had been postponed.
In a follow-up response, the spokesperson wrote that “the United States does not run a censorship circumvention tool program targeted at Europe, but supporting privacy tools is a high priority for our policy.”
The spokesperson continued: “Digital freedom is a priority for the State
Department, and that includes the spread of privacy and censorship circumvention tools such as VPNs.”
The new platform could put Washington in the odd position of making it easier for users to access content that is banned under the laws of allied nations.
Experts say this could further complicate an already tense relationship between the United States and European nations over issues such as trade policy, security spending, and the conflict in Ukraine.
The Trump administration has increasingly used the concept of freedom of expression as a core component of its foreign policy communication.
U.S. government officials have stated that the regulation of freedom of expression in other countries, especially in Europe and certain parts of Latin America, could lead to the suppression of political ideas, including those that come from conservative groups.
U.S. government officials have been vocal about their criticism of European regulations on content moderation, claiming that such regulations could be applied in a discriminatory manner to right-leaning politicians and commentators.
European policymakers have dismissed such claims, arguing that their regulations aim to combat disinformation and hate speech on the internet while protecting democratic values.
Read Also: U.S. Military Strikes Over 30 Islamic State Targets in Syria
The gap is a result of vastly different traditions of law. While in the United States the First Amendment to the Constitution restricts the government’s power to regulate speech even when it is offensive or controversial, in many European countries certain types of speech are criminalized, such as Holocaust denial and incitement to hatred, and these policies are based on the history of the continent in the 20th century.
The European Union has recently introduced broad digital laws that oblige technology companies to remove illegal content from the internet more quickly.
These laws have been criticized by U.S. officials who believe that they could increase the power of the state to regulate online speech.
The sensitivities in the proposed U.S. portal are further complicated by the current geopolitical tensions.
The relationship between Washington and some European capitals has been under strain due to military expenditure, trade rows, and U.S. policy stances on territorial matters, such as the current debate on the strategic status of Greenland.
There has been no comment from European officials on the reported plan. The EU Delegation in Washington, which represents the institutions of the 27-member bloc, did not respond to requests for comment.
However, information on the scope of the platform, the funding, and the timeline for its launch is still limited. It is also not known how the United States would handle the legal issues that would arise from users accessing content that is banned in their countries.