Vice President JD Vance pulled no punches when he stood before the censorious international community and emphatically rejected global censorship.
“We feel very strongly that AI must remain free from ideological bias and that American AI will not be co-opted into a tool for authoritarian censorship,” Vance said at the Paris AI Summit Tuesday. He went on to note that pro-censorship regulations are unacceptable and could kill innovation.
Vance made clear that the U.S., as “the leader in AI,” has serious expectations of the AI industry regarding free speech, asserting that American-style speech protections will benefit the entire world. “The Trump administration is troubled by reports that some foreign governments are considering tightening the screws on US tech companies with international footprints,” he said. “America cannot and will not accept that and we think it's a terrible mistake not just for the United States of America but for your own countries.”
Responding to concerns about internet safety, which are sometimes even used by GOP politicians to justify censorship legislation, Vance explained, “Of course, we want to ensure the internet is a safe place, but it is one thing to prevent a predator from praying on a child on the internet and it is something quite different to prevent a grown man or woman from accessing an opinion that the government thinks is misinformation.”
Vance highlighted the damage that pro-censorship policies have caused across the world, particularly in the European Union. “The U.S. innovators of all sizes already know what it's like to deal with onerous international rules,” Vance said. “Many of our most productive tech companies are forced to deal with the EU's Digital Services Act and the massive regulations it created about taking down content and policing so-called misinformation.”
European censorship regulations have become more and more of a problem for companies over the last six months. Tensions escalated when EU commissioner Thierry Breton issued a letter threatening regulatory action against X if Elon Musk allowed then-presidential candidate Donald Trump free speech during an interview on the platform.
Meta has also faced pressure to censor content. Although the company previously praised the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has recently urged American politicians to defend domestic companies’ ability to protect free speech despite European regulations.
Crippling EU regulations have also impacted smaller companies like the popular prayer app Hallow, which was essentially banned from the EU along with every other religious app due to vague overregulation. According to Hallow’s CEO and co-founder Alex Jones (not to be confused with InfoWars’s Alex Jones), “They said explicitly it was something that was being applied to all religious apps.”
Vance spoke to this problem too, noting how for small firms navigating regulation “means paying endless legal compliance costs or otherwise risking massive fines.” He added that “for some, the easiest way to avoid the dilemma has been to simply block EU users in the first place.
In conclusion, the Vice President challenged the audience of global elites by asking: “Is this really the future that we want ladies and gentlemen? I think the answer for all of us should be no.”
Conservatives are 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.
