Addressing Foreign Assaults on American Expression and Innovation: An Agenda for Policymakers
This blog is part of a series on technology innovation and free expression.
US tech policies have allowed innovation and speech to flourish in the United States, with large titans of industry, a vibrant culture of tech start-ups, and consumers who have benefited immensely from the constant improvements. And the benefits of this flourishing have spread across the world as billions of people have made use of new technologies to improve their lives, connect with other people, and expand knowledge and expression.
But despite these advances, other nations do not share US values. Instead, many other nations have sought to control and regulate technology companies and products. Perhaps the leader of this approach was the EU, which has adopted a constant stream of technology regulations. The General Data Protection Regulation, the Digital Markets Act, the Digital Services Act (DSA), the EU AI Act, and other EU and national regulations all contribute to a massive burden on technology companies.
While these regulations have resulted in lost opportunities and growth for European society, the costs are not just limited to Europe. Companies, primarily American, must bear huge compliance costs in the development and provision of their services in Europe. Because compliance is so intensive, companies may decide it is simply easier to make all their products comply with EU regulations, even those being provided in the United States. This upward-regulatory pressure is known as the Brussels effect. Alternatively, companies may not launch products or even leave Europe as the regulatory barriers and costs are too high.
Beyond the pressure of regulations, the regulators themselves have sought to spread their regulatory vision for technology beyond their borders. In 2022, the EU opened a “tech embassy” in Silicon Valley to ensure “compliance” from technology companies and has inspired and supported California lawmakers looking to pass EU-style regulations. EU leaders invoked the DSA to publicly threaten Elon Musk for hosting a conversation with Donald Trump on X during the 2024 election for fear of hate speech and disinformation. The Federal Trade Commission has collaborated with foreign regulators to stop mergers they disapprove of. And President Biden’s executive order on artificial intelligence reflects a European-style approach to tech regulation.
Worse still, American companies have also come under more open assault around the world in places like Russia or Brazil. Brazil’s judiciary, for example, has, with the blessing of the elected government, seized the authority to investigate, prosecute, and punish any online speech or speaker that it views to be a threat to democracy. This court makes secretive demands to social media companies to censor its political opponents without due process. When X refused to comply with this, the court shut down X and held American investors in Musk’s other companies liable for refusing to obey the government’s unaccountable censorship.
The US government must respond to the growing influence of foreign governments if we want to continue to enjoy the expressive and innovative benefits of new technologies. This starts with ceasing cooperation with foreign officials in their efforts to hamstring American companies. But it goes further to using all relevant diplomatic tools to condemn governments that attempt to intrude on American businesses and speech. The US government should instead promote a liberal and permissionless vision of online speech and innovation. This also means embodying that standard here at home and rejecting overly burdensome and expression-restricting regulations that are often derived from flawed foreign tech policies.
