and free speech is one best handled by platforms, not government regulators. We’ve been warning for years that the United States’ and EU’s differing approaches to governing online content were going to clash and have consequences beyond the largest online platforms. Policy experts have taken note of the regulatory showdown between X and Europe, with some calling it an example of the “Brussels Effect.” The Cato Institute has defined that as “de facto governance norms beyond the borders of the EU.” The Europeans claim to be trying to prevent harm to consumers of American technology, but for the most part, what they are really doing is trying to stamp out viewpoints contrary to what European Union bureaucrats want its citizens to hear. The George Washington University Law School further argued that the Digital Services Act would skew “global content-moderation policies toward the EU’s instead of the U.S.’s balance of speech harms versus benefits,” thus encouraging other governments around the world to enact laws that similarly would impose substantial penalties on American social media companies for violating aspects of the Digital Services Act or similar legislation. Fortunately, some American free-speech advocates are resisting what they call Europe’s “discriminatory practices.” For instance, several U.S. pro-business organizations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, last year wrote a letter pointing out that the “EU has openly targeted U.S. companies with a discriminatory digital sovereignty agenda designed to undermine America’s role in the global trading system.” Related Articles