Marco Rubio emerges as a free speech fighter, leader
Rubio: Free speech is essential to the American way of life
Yeah, you read the headline right. Little Marco Rubio, otherwise known as the former U.S. senator and now secretary of state, has become a titan inside the Trump administration, and nowhere is his power and importance more noteworthy than in the arena of free speech.
As it turns out, if free speech survives in this country—and the jury is still out on that one—we may have Rubio to thank in addition to Donald Trump. Which is to say that, had Harris won, the duct tape would be all over our social media mouths now; instead, since the inauguration, Trump’s free speech actions have been thankfully louder than his sometimes anti-free speech rhetoric, and JD Vance has advanced the cause boldly in both actions and words.
But it is the quieter Rubio who is shining on the free speech stage. His deliberate actions on the international stage in the past month are especially important, given the European Union’s growing authoritarianism, and the threat it poses to our own freedoms.
If the open borders of the Biden administration were literally an invasion—and they were—then the EU’s censorship regime, with criminal hate speech laws and the ominous Digital Services Act (DSA), is no less a foreign threat to the borders of our constitution. Don’t pity the poor conservatives being jailed for hate speech in Europe now, but be warned by their fates: In July 2024, to cite one example, Lucy Connolly, the wife of a local councillor for the UK’s Conservative Party, was sentenced to 31 months for calling for mass deportation and saying she wouldn’t care if immigrant hotels were burned down.
Last month the appeal of her sentence as excessive was turned down. Literally, this woman is going to be spending 2.5 years in prison for saying this online: “Mass deportation now, set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards for all I care, while you’re at it, take the treacherous government politicians with them. … If that makes me racist, so be it.”
Outrageous, yes. Deserving of a multi-year prison sentence? Not in a thousand years. On what planet would that be imposed in a free country? We could be next if we aren’t careful.
Put bluntly, the EU is attacking us with a global censorship war, and that’s why JD Vance’s speech in Munich this year drawing a line in the sand was so important.
But Rubio’s actions have been more substantive. First, back in April, Rubio shuttered the aptly evil sounding Global Engagement Center, which was renamed the even more sinister sounding Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference hub (R-FIMI). The “center” was established to fight Russian disinformation under Obama, but it quickly became known for meddling in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
Just as an aside, any government entity that comes at you with the words, “Counter,” “Information Manipulation,” and “Interference” in its title is just screaming for you to run away as far as you can, as fast as you can.
Since then, an unelected federal district court judge has tried to stop that from happening—federal district court judges have far and away become the great protectors of collectivist bureaucracy—but that judge ultimately won’t be successful, and, in any event, that didn’t cause Rubio to break a sweat.
In fact, just a little more than two weeks ago, on May 28, Rubio took a critical step that could become the basis for preserving the First Amendment, issuing new visa restrictions that prohibit foreign nationals deemed “responsible for censorship of protected expression” from entering the country:
“Free speech is among the most cherished rights we enjoy as Americans,” Rubio said in announcing the policy. “This right, legally enshrined in our constitution, has set us apart as a beacon of freedom around the world. Even as we take action to reject censorship at home, we see troubling instances of foreign governments and foreign officials picking up the slack.”
Rubio said foreign officials have taken flagrant censorship actions against U.S. tech companies and U.S. citizens and residents when they have no authority to do so.
Hence, the ban:
It is unacceptable for foreign officials to issue or threaten arrest warrants on U.S. citizens or U.S. residents for social media posts on American platforms while physically present on U.S. soil. It is similarly unacceptable for foreign officials to demand that American tech platforms adopt global content moderation policies or engage in censorship activity that reaches beyond their authority and into the United States. We will not tolerate encroachments upon American sovereignty, especially when such encroachments undermine the exercise of our fundamental right to free speech.
Of course, MAGA’s unbridled commitment to constitutional free speech has been ignored or subverted by the media, and Europe’s descent into totalitarianism and the threat that poses has also been depressed in the news cycles and by algorithms on social media. Even when it is covered, such as Vance’s speech in Munich earlier this year, the press leaned into attacking Vance’s supposed recklessness for supporting free speech and denouncing tyranny.
Odd, that.
But here’s the real problem ….
It’s bad enough that Europe wants to censor its own citizens, but they want to censor us, too. Up until recently, they have been pretty damn successful at it, primarily through the use of the the Digital Services Act, a law that embraces the doctrine of anti-free speech, and enforces it with criminal prosecutions.
It is a draconian law that allows for sweeping censorship and speech prosecutions. Most important, it has been used by the EU to threaten American corporations for their failure to censor Americans and others on social media sites.
By prohibiting those officials who help enact such policies from entering the country—and we are talking about government officials only, not the traveling public—Rubio is making a statement, but he is doing a whole lot more: He is clarifying, as the old question asked, which side are you on? He is also debilitating their ability to engage in international governmental business in the U.S., which can have crippling economic ramifications.
Good. Foreign nationals who side with tyrants, at least those EU officials who are actively involved in pursuing global censorship policies, should not be welcome here. After all, would you invite someone into your home who would not only like to tie you up and gag you but will actually try to do so? Probably not.
As Rubio mentioned, because of the DSA, American citizens abroad are subject to arrest for violating hate speech laws even when the offending speech occurred on American soil and on an American platform. Worse is the leverage the EU is using against American corporations to get them to silence American citizens on their platforms
For example, the European Union has opened formal proceedings against X under the DSA, investigating potential breaches of content moderation rules and the obviously criminal act of not doing enough to suppress “disinformation,” which, I guess, would be defined by the EU. Fines, which could be announced this summer, could total up to $1 billion.
The hope is, of course, that the censoring of social media platforms in Europe would force media companies to comply with their stricter speech standards—meaning there is no free speech—and apply those standards across the board, including in the U.S. Here’s how Jacob Mchangama, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, puts it:
The European policies do not apply in the U.S., but given the size of the European market and the risk of legal liability, it will be tempting and financially wise for U.S.-based tech companies to skew their global content moderation policies even more toward a European approach to protect their bottom lines and streamline their global standards. Referring to European legal standards may thus provide both formal legitimacy and a convenient excuse when platforms remove political speech protected by U.S. law, and that Americans would expect private platforms facilitating public debate to safeguard too.
The result, Mchangama wrote, could subject American social media users to moderation policies imposed by another government, constrained by far weaker free speech guarantees than the First Amendment.
Not just for the locals …
That the Digital Services Act is not just a domestic legal constraint for the European government but an offensive weapon with which to attack U.S. freedoms is well understood in the EU. And so it was no surprise to see Nina Jankowicz, Biden’s former lead censor tapped to head his short-lived Disinformation Governance Board, and who has now founded, hilariously, the American Sunlight Project, testify before the European Parliament on the grave threat free speech in America poses to the planet:
I would like to call upon you to stand firm against another autocracy, the United States of America. The Trump administration is undoubtedly preparing a pressure campaign to force EU institutions to roll back regulations like the Digital Services Act, to end support for Ukraine, to stop holding Russia to account. Do not capitulate. Hold the line. Doing so is the clearest signal the European Union could send to Russia and other adversaries that it will not stop fighting to preserve democracy at home and around the world.
Jankowicz is wrong. The Trump adminsitration is not attempting to force the EU to roll back its totalitarian policies. It is certainly urging them to do so and is warning that censorship and authoritarianism will erode our special relationship—and the special benefits that accrue to Europe because of it—if they continue down that path. But it is entirely their choice to do so.
What the Trump administration is doing is defending our own freedoms and repelling a global offensive against our freedoms engineered by the EU. That, more than anything, will break down the alliances we have with Europe.
On the very front line of that defense and resistance is Marco Rubio, who has become a towering voice for free speech. As Rubio said when announcing the visa restrictions:
For too long, Americans have been fined, harassed, and even charged by foreign authorities for exercising their free speech rights. Today, I am announcing a new visa restriction policy that will apply to foreign officials and persons who are complicit in censoring Americans. Free speech is essential to the American way of life – a birthright over which foreign governments have no authority. Foreigners who work to undermine the rights of Americans should not enjoy the privilege of traveling to our country. Whether in Latin America, Europe, or elsewhere, the days of passive treatment for those who work to undermine the rights of Americans are over.
Well said by Rubio and worth saying again: “The days of passive treatment for those who work to undermine the rights of Americans are over.”