Don't cave to Euro censorship or backdoor demands, Uncle Sam warns US tech firms
- Reference: 1755844089
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/08/22/ftc_us_censorship/
- Source link:
On [1]Thursday , Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew Ferguson published the letter, sent to Akamai, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Cloudflare, Discord, GoDaddy, Meta, Microsoft, Signal, Snap, Slack, and X, warning that complying with foreign governments' censorship demands or weakening encryption could violate US law.
"President Trump has put a swift end to the weaponization of the federal government against Americans and their freedoms, but foreign governments present emerging and ongoing threats to the free exchange of ideas," the letter [2]reads [PDF].
[3]
"Companies might be censoring Americans in response to the laws, demands, or expected demands of foreign powers. And the anti-encryption policies of foreign governments might be causing companies to weaken data security measures and other technological means for Americans to vindicate their right to anonymous and private speech."
[4]
[5]
The move is the latest step in the Trump administration's war against the regulation of disinformation online and the apparent need for giving governments the right to view online communications. The US State Department [6]fired a shot across Europe's bows earlier this month, reportedly ordering US diplomats in Europe to complain about the EU's Digital Services Act and how much it costs to enforce.
The EU is currently [7]investigating X to determine if letting people buy blue ticks to promote their content breaches European law, drawing the ire of X's owner and one-time Trump friend Elon Musk. As for the UK, America's Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard [8]claimed the UK had backed down on demands for a backdoor to Apple's encrypted data after pressure from the second Trump administration.
[9]
"Because online platforms have become so critical to public discourse, pervasive online censorship in recent years has outraged the American people," Ferguson claimed.
"Not only have Americans been censored and expelled from platforms for uttering opinions and beliefs that were not shared by a small Silicon Valley elite, the previous administration actively worked to encourage such censorship."
[10]Euro Commish on US lobbying against EU DSA rules: 'Our standards are not up for discussion'
[11]The White House could end UK's decade-long fight to bust encryption
[12]EU gives staff 'burner phones, laptops' for US visits
[13]Banning VPNs to protect kids? Good luck with that
What's ironic is that for years, the US tried to claim the same powers the UK and EU now exercise. Trump's former Attorney General [14]William Barr and the former FBI boss Christopher Wray both [15]advocated backdooring encryption, although the NSA was [16]less sanguine about the policy.
But since the second Trump administration came into power, America's position has changed somewhat. On his recent visit to the UK, veep JD Vance wasn't prepared to sit back about such matters, [17]warning UK ministers that restricting people from saying what they want to online could have serious consequences.
The debate has pushed some unlikely bedfellows to team up. On Thursday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's senior speech and privacy activist Paige Collings [18]argued that the UK's Online Safety Act was a major threat to privacy and was not making children safer, but was an excuse for government overreach.
[19]
Over in Westminster, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage pledged to repeal the Online Safety Act, a move that [20]prompted Labour tech secretary Peter Kyle to say Farage was on the side of "extreme pornographers."
Ferguson, however, was firm on the issue in his Thursday missive.
"American consumers do not reasonably expect to be censored to appease a foreign power and may be deceived by such actions," he wrote.
"And as with weakened security measures, consumers might be further deceived if companies do not prominently disclose that censorious policies were adopted due to the actions of a foreign government, as consumers might not want to use a service that exposes them to censorship by foreign powers."
None of the companies named in the letter had any comment on the matter at time of publication. ®
Get our [21]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/08/ftc-chairman-ferguson-warns-companies-against-censoring-or-weakening-data-security-americans-behest
[2] https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/ftc-unfair-security-letter-ferguson.pdf
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aKg_vBQsUo37S8glt1vktwAAANg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aKg_vBQsUo37S8glt1vktwAAANg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aKg_vBQsUo37S8glt1vktwAAANg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/07/eu_dsa_us_lobbying/
[7] https://www.reuters.com/technology/musks-x-breached-dsa-online-content-rules-eu-says-2024-07-12/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/19/uk_apple_backdoor_uturn/
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aKg_vBQsUo37S8glt1vktwAAANg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/07/eu_dsa_us_lobbying/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/12/could_the_white_house_put/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/15/ec_burner_devices/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/31/banning_vpns_to_protect_kids/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2019/07/23/us_encryption_backdoor/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2019/07/25/encryption_fbi_boss/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2016/01/28/nsas_top_hacking_boss_explains_how_to_protect_your_network_from_his_minions/?page=2
[17] https://nationalpost.com/opinion/j-d-tuccille-europes-censors-threaten-free-speech-around-the-globe
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/21/the_uk_online_safety_act/
[19] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aKg_vBQsUo37S8glt1vktwAAANg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[20] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jul/29/peter-kyle-nigel-farage-extreme-pornographers-online-safety-bill
[21] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Serve Two Masters
One "concern" is that, faced with conflicting legal instructions from EU and US, American social media companies might give up on the EU altogether.
That would leave Europe's population served only by homegrown social media, cut off from the likes of Meta and the site formerly known as Twitter.
However will we survive?
Re: Serve Two Masters
> However will we survive?
Happily ever after?
(nah, obviously not. If needed, Europe can easily be the soucre of its own misery)
Re: Serve Two Masters
We've already seen what happened in the case of potentially-conflicting legal instructions from China and the US: TikTok decided it would rather give up on the US than hand over its money-making algorithm. And the US folded (or rather Trump did, since he was personally extending the sale deadline with dubious legality).
I suspect that if there are European pressures to regulate content, the social media companies will grumble and get on with it - it's too big a market to ignore. If, on the other hand, there's much further pressure on privacy - which would essentially make the current incarnation of social media uneconomic - they'll be whining to the US about the assault on their manifest destiny.
But I'm not really sure how much more life the present social media companies have. Meta has vast quantities of money which it is burning through with little obvious return while Facebook has pretty much become the latterday equivalent of Exchange and Mart. Twittex is now almost entirely irrelevant. And whatever is popular with the current generation of kids will be deeply unfashionable with the next.
Re: However will we survive?
As a personal example, I do home machining/additive manufacturing and, despite my annoyance at being forced to use that platform, a lot of the discussion does happen on Meta groups. My presence there is so apolitical that the algorithm just serves me a mix of ads for Chinese tat machines and 'uplifting' nonsense stories. Some really impressive stuff (as far as achieving a great deal with limited resources) has happened through what is effectively international collaboration.
It's not just swivel-eyed loons on opposite ends of the political discussion slinging nonsense at each other.
Re: However will we survive?
Long gone are the days of someone installing PHPBB on a host and running a forum.
Re: Serve Two Masters
@Henry Hallan
"That would leave Europe's population served only by homegrown social media, cut off from the likes of Meta and the site formerly known as Twitter."
5 minutes and the politicians would be so scared of their populations revolting against EU membership and it would be reversed quickly.
I was reading the Whitehouse has made a tiktok account. The US was banning Tiktok and Trump had the legal authority to extend the cut off date for 90 days. Apparently (with questionable legality) Trump keeps extending the deadline and congress who should be forcing this have nothing to say from either side of the isle.
*Apologies to abend0c4, it seems you wrote about this an hour before me and I didnt see it --->
Et tu, brute?
"President Trump has put a swift end to the weaponization of the federal government against Americans and their freedoms"
Well that's somewhere between a staggering nothingburger of a statement and an outright lie. The foreign nations being asked under five-eyes to put efforts in to Americans of interest, and share their data back to the US "so we're not spying on our own people" have entered the chat, alongside the US's direct use of Pegasus against its own people "but only for special cases that might impact national security".
There's a reason politicians speak like an addendum to 1984, and it's because they don't traditionally venture in to waters where they don't want to stir up the silt. I understand that "the modern truth" is what you can make people believe, often what is shouted loudest. That said, get your own house in order before you start throwing stones, or shut up and go back in your corner.
And as to the UK politicians with less competence and understanding of technical matters than a soggy blancmange, sit down, you're embarrassing yourself (and us by extension) on a global scale.
"restricting people from saying what they want to online could have serious consequences"
Bullshit.
This waffling about Free Speech is just the veil used to ensure that banking will continue to be secure.
It's all about the money, don't be mistaken.
'Farage was on the side of "extreme pornographers."'
Clearly he wouldn't have the bollocks to be on top of ...
Would he now?
Luckily for me...
...I don't give a flying fuck what is written on Twatter or Farcebook or ShitTok or any of these echo chambers so any "censorship" (read: we don't like the fact they won't publish hate speech and disinformation, and keep fact checking our stuff!) won't affect me.
However, if anyone seriously believes that the orange pedo has anyone else's interests at heart but his own in whatever nonsense he's spouting today, they should probably go and get their head checked and prefereably removed permanently.
Trump promises to quash Trump*
RotW puts regs in place for anyone operating in RotW. Trump makes law to outlaw US companies following RotW regs. US companies caught between rock and hard place, start to falter in RotW marketplace. Trump rails against "any cause stopping US companies making more bucks" and drafts order to prosecute anyone or anything that prevents that. Trump prosecuted. Nothing changes. Bugger.
* Oh, if only.
Who are these "American" companies he speaks of?
Most large Corps, especially US based ones, are not under any direct threat of "censorship" or anything else from foreign powers. The local incorporated subsidiaries may well be, but definitely not the US parent company. They all operate the same way, with arms-length local subsidiaries for tax reasons mainly, but also so they can operate within the local laws of the land where those laws may conflict with the US law. Even more so in Europe since GDPR. And especially in China. The China model of corporate web operations is a prime example of how local laws on censorship don't affect the mothership and those companies clearly are happy to censor locally in China without it affect their business outside of China.
On the other hand, I do applaud the US outrage as on the face of it as it brings the dangers and hypocrisy into the wider public attention, especially the UKs OSA and the moves the EU are making, along with threats so many US States are imposing or planning to impose, even if the Administration are mostly using it as a distraction technique. (They can't seem to go a full week without exploding over some newly perceived "threat" to "the American Dream", it almost like they feed on the media response and need more and more to keep going while trying to shift attention away from their failings)
Hmm
"The move is the latest step in the Trump administration's war against the regulation of disinformation online and the apparent need for giving governments the right to view online communications."
I am not sure how it regulates so called 'disinformation' aka not the official line. Maybe the stasi arrive to escort you to their nearest 'learning facility' where you will be re-educated?
I am very happy to hear the US calling out the previous admin and Europe. Even if it backfires on themselves that people increasingly demand their privacy we keep seeing repeats off what happens when it is violated.
Re: Hmm
> so called 'disinformation' aka not the official line
Right now, the disinformation is the official line "the election was stolen" etc.
"Not only have Americans been censored and expelled from platforms for uttering opinions and beliefs that were not shared by a small Silicon Valley elite, the previous administration actively worked to encourage such censorship."
Putting aside who it's coming from I can completey agree with a policy of discouraging tech companies from letting one country set the censorship standard outside of their borders (e.g. when Australia demanded global censorship of videos on X). However, the quotes on censorship in this article seem to pertain to internal private decisions.
The danger there is falling into the trap of compelled speech; where a private individual or corporation is forced to host material it disagrees with. It's in the same ballpark as the 'support gay marriage' cake case.