US Congress holds hearing on EU censorship: Live updates
The US House Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing on “Europe’s threat to American speech and innovation.” The panel is looking into what it calls a global censorship regime imposed by the EU under the guise of fighting “disinformation.”
The hearing is taking place one day after the committee published a lengthy report detailing European Commission pressure on tech companies – first with ‘voluntary’ agreements and then with laws such as the Digital Services Act – into demoting and removing legal but “borderline” speech. Content that went against Brussels’ position on Covid-19 and the Ukraine conflict was targeted, as was “anti-migrant,” “populist,” and “anti-elite” messaging.
By forcing platforms to censor this content for all users, the EU directly restricted the free speech rights of Americans, Republicans on the committee argue. The committee has also singled out the UK’s Online Safety Act as unfairly impacting Americans.
Witnesses at the hearing include Irish comedian Graham Linehan, who was arrested by British police last year for anti-transgender posts on X, and Irish lawyer Lorcan Price of Alliance Defending Freedom International, a Christian legal advocacy group.
Democrats on the committee, led by Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, brought Deepinder Singh Mayell of the American Civil Liberties Union as their witness, and focused their questioing almost entirely on the activities of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minnesota.
04 February 2026
17:50 GMTUS Vice President JD Vance called out the EU censorship machine at last year’s Munich Security Conference, accusing “EU Commission commissars” of waging a war on free speech.
“The administration was shining a light on the nature of the problem,” Price says, adding that “this is going to get worse. You have people being arrested for praying silently in the UK, people being prosecuted for posting Bible verses, making jokes.”
- 17:37 GMT
Texas Rep. Troy Nehls brings the discussion back to the EU, but he’s got an issue with other regulations – namely the bloc’s corporate sustainability laws. These “nothing short of a full-blown assault on American sovereignty and energy independence.”
The mandates force Texas oil and gas companies to comply with environmental treaties never agreed to in order to supply Europe with liquefied natural gas, he explains.
Price agrees that these EU regulations are part of a wider effort by Brussels “to make the world in its image.”
- 17:29 GMT
Mayell has become the star witness of the hearing, as Democrats and Republicans go back and forth about whether protesters in Minnesota are exercising their Constitutional rights, or obstructing law enforcement agents.
“The feeling in Minnesota is one of disruption,” Mayell says, after multiple rounds of questioning without any mention of the EU.
- 16:34 GMT
“Did the Biden administration censor people?” Jordan asks Mayell, after Rep. Jerry Nadler and Mayell spend another five minutes condemning ICE.
Mayell refuses to answer, telling Jordan he’ll only talk about the situation in Minnesota.
- 16:25 GMT
There are two parallel hearings happening here. Jordan and the Republicans are sticking to the theme of censorship in Europe, while Raskin and the Democrats are focused entirely on ICE.
“We’re having another hearing about the imaginary threat to the transphobic material of Irish comedians…and we can’t seem to have a hearing about ICE agents shooting Americans in the face,” Raskin shouts, before allowing Mayell to describe the “authoritarian and violent” tactics of ICE agents in Minnesota.
- 16:14 GMT
Raskin’s witness is Deepinder Singh Mayell of the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) Minnesota branch. He focuses his statement on the ICE crackdown in his state, accusing federal agents of killing two Americans for exercising their First Amendment right to protest.
“We urge you to demand that federal forces withdraw from Minnesota now,” he tells the committee.
- 16:00 GMT
“Gender ideology and free speech cannot coexist,” Linehan tells the hearing.
He mentions reports of male rapists in US women’s prisons, men in women’s sports in Ireland, and the British government refusing to implement a court ruling confirming that a person’s sex is a biological reality because it’s “trans-exclusive.”
“If the British government can ignore its own Supreme Court to appease gender activists, so can yours,” he warns.
