A Belgium-based lawyer who advocates for free speech is sounding the alarm on the long reach of the European Union’s censorship arm.
Adina Portaru, senior counsel for ADF International, spoke on a panel at the organization’s Web Summit last week. She described the disturbing reality of how content considered illegal in Germany or other EU member states can, through litigation and enforcement of censorship laws, be crushed even if posted by American users.
Portaru said, “To give a concrete example, in Germany, it is illegal to insult a politician. If you have a content creator in the United States that posts a critical video or a cartoon or a satirical text online on X or Meta or TikTok, that content may be deemed illegal not only in Germany, but potentially through strategic litigation in other EU member states and in the world, in the U.S. included.”
The Digital Services Act threatens to export EU censorship across the world. Under the DSA, German legislation criminalising "insulting" a politician could even be used to censor American free speech online. @Adina_Portaru explained yesterday at @WebSummit 👇
— ADF International (@ADFIntl) Nov 12, 2025
The EU has a new project called “Democracy Shield,” launched last week, which supposedly combats election disinformation, a favorite leftist catchphrase often used to describe opinions or facts with which they disagree.
When announcing Democracy Shield, Ireland's EU Commissioner Michael McGrath described a Centre for Democratic Resilience that will supposedly assist EU member states to address election manipulation and false information. The center’s resources will even be available to nations that are candidate states for the EU, but not yet members, according to RTE. The Centre will reportedly facilitate a Rapid Alert System and coordinate with so-called experts in the academic, fact-checking, and social media spheres to flag and suppress content.
This initiative and the scenario described by Portaru are made possible by the anti-free speech EU Digital Services Act, which makes certain types of free speech illegal. The EU weaponizes it to pressure American companies. In September, for example, the EU fined Google for alleged antitrust violations, after the company withdrew from the fact-checking chapter of the initially voluntary E.U. Code of Conduct on Disinformation.
In August, EU Consumer and Market Authority board member Manon Leijten asserted that U.S. Big Tech companies have a “social duty” to censor election-related content, especially under the DSA.
Free speech is under attack! Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
