OPINION:
This is a precarious time if you care about free speech in this country or anywhere around the globe. The freedom of expression is an innate human right, enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and recognized by even the United Nations, but it will quickly begin to slip away unless it is fiercely and ably defended.
It’s our good fortune to have President Trump in the White House as a protector of those liberties because many people are plotting to take them away. That may sound like paranoia, but it most certainly is not, especially in the internet age.
A recent “60 Minutes” segment highlighted the enforcement of German speech laws, which include predawn raids on private residences to seize computers allegedly used to post web content deemed offensive by the government. Seriously, people are being arrested for memes.
In Britain, people have been jailed for praying silently — actual thought crimes — and the European Union is trying to police global speech with its Digital Services Act. This is a horrendous law with an ironic name that attempts to control speech everywhere by imposing EU standards worldwide.
Yes, because of the internet’s borderless nature, laws in other countries matter a great deal to Americans. If someone is trying to prevent audiences from hearing certain messages in one place, they must try to stop speech coming from somewhere else.
This is precisely what’s happening in Brazil. Out-of-control Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes has targeted the video sharing platform Rumble because it hosts the U.S.-based accounts of a political dissident and Brazilian expat whom Mr. Moraes wants to silence. He doesn’t want Brazilians to hear certain opinions, so he is trying to delete them completely. Yet Rumble, which is a client of my public affairs firm, defends the freedom of expression as its mission and refuses to take down the content.
You see, Mr. Moraes, like the European Union and others, was trying to control speech in his own country by banning it altogether. This was where the Trump administration came in.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the U.S. will be restricting the visas of foreign officials or nationals who censor Americans. This is precisely the kind of treatment that authoritarians like Mr. Moraes deserve. If they wish to trample on the rights of Americans, they will no longer be welcome in America.
To underscore Mr. Trump’s displeasure even further, the Justice Department sent a letter advising Mr. Moraes that his efforts to censor Americans are futile.
In the extraordinary communication, the Trump Justice Department explained to Mr. Moraes that “to the extent that these documents direct Rumble to undertake specific actions in the United States, we respectfully advise that such directives are not enforceable judicial orders in the United States.”
Fox News said it was an “unprecedented” approach that placed Rumble “at the center of an international battle to protect free speech that has been ongoing for months.”
World governments doubtlessly have strong and aggressive anti-speech forces that are not shy about testing the limits of their authority. In addition to Brazil, Rumble reports that it has received and denied censorship demands from the governments of China, Russia, France, Britain, Australia and New Zealand.
It’s a reminder that it’s vital to have Mr. Trump and platforms such as Rumble willing to take on the fight, because it was not always so.
Not long ago, Joseph R. Biden was in the White House and regular people were getting canceled for holding unapproved political opinions. Government officials bullied and forced social media platforms to do their bidding by suspending and silencing law-abiding citizens. They punished people for being skeptical of COVID-19 information and banished them for doubting election results. For a time, they even banned Mr. Trump from some platforms while he was the sitting president.
All that sounds very much like those other, censorious regimes from around the world, and it should shock any clear-thinking American.
We should be thankful that the Trump administration, with allies like Rumble, has staked out the high ground on free speech. The message is clear: No one in a foreign country can reach in and override our First Amendment, threaten our sovereignty or interfere with Americans exercising their constitutional rights.
It took a Trump victory in 2024 and some backbone from Rumble, but a red line has been drawn: America will once again protect free speech, and that’s good news for the whole world.
• Tim Murtaugh is a Washington Times columnist and founder of Line Drive Public Affairs. He served as a senior adviser on the 2024 Trump campaign and as communications director on the 2020 Trump campaign.
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