The European Union (EU) pressured U.S. tech platforms to censor Americans’ online speech on topics including the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccines, according to a U.S. House of Representatives interim report published last week. The report accused the EU of “trying to make an end-run around the First Amendment and censor US speech that does not align with its preferred narratives.” According to the report, EU officials have held over 100 closed-door meetings with representatives of social media platforms since 2020. They pressured tech firms to apply EU speech laws, including the Digital Services Act (DSA), to U.S. content. The report described these actions as an effort to “censor the global internet.” “Though often framed as combating so-called ‘hate speech’ or ‘disinformation,’ the European Commission worked to censor true information and political speech about some of the most important policy debates in recent history — including the COVID-19 pandemic,” the report states. He said that EU policies attempt to influence public opinion on people like U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., “who is consistently portrayed as a conspiracy theorist or antivaxxer without providing him the opportunity to answer.” Attorney W. Scott McCollough said the EU is attempting to censor Americans’ speech because it doesn’t want its citizens exposed to the wider range of opinions that U.S. free speech protections generally allow. Bright headlights have become a genuine safety issue for American drivers. Complaints about being blinded by oncoming vehicles are now commonplace, cutting across age groups, vehicle types, and driving environments. For most of automotive history, safety innovations followed a clear principle: improve visibility without creating new risks. Today’s headlight crisis shows how far that balance has drifted. What began as a push for better nighttime illumination has turned into a widespread hazard — one driven not by reckless drivers or faulty equipment, but by outdated regulations and incentives that reward brightness without restraint. Modern LED headlights are far brighter than anything federal regulators envisioned when lighting standards were written decades ago. As frustration grows, an uncomfortable truth is becoming clear: This problem is not a technological failure. It is the predictable result of rules that no longer reflect how vehicles are designed, tested, or driven. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety reports that average headlight brightness has roughly doubled over the past decade. Complaints submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration increasingly describe glare so intense that it causes eye strain, headaches, and momentary loss of visual clarity. These reports come from drivers of all ages, in both older vehicles and brand-new ones, on city streets and rural highways alike. A headlight that improves visibility for one vehicle can simultaneously degrade safety for everyone else. https://www.theblaze.com/align/why-are-modern-car-headlights-so-blindingly-bright Those with the means are fleeing America’s public schools. A recent article in The 74 reports that enrollment has dropped more in affluent Massachusetts districts than in all of the state’s low- and middle-income communities combined. That “rich flight” shows up even in a state whose schools routinely rank near the top nationally. First, affluent families are choosing private schools even though they already pay for public schools through taxes. That means they are paying twice — once to support a system they are leaving and again in tuition to exit it. How many more middle- and working-class families would leave if they could afford to? Now imagine what happens when parents don’t have to pay twice. How popular would private-school options be if families could use a tax credit or scholarship to offset what they already pay into the system? That question should terrify teachers’ unions. It should energize lawmakers. School choice has already become a major political force, and it will only grow as parents lose confidence in public schools. That may help explain why Americans keep moving south. The biggest population gainers from 2014 through 2024 included states like Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida — states with low taxes and high growth, yes, but also states that have embraced school choice more aggressively than Massachusetts has. Chronic absenteeism remains high. Math scores remain depressed. School leaders report more disruption, more fighting, more bullying, more classroom chaos, and more fear among parents. If conservatives are serious, they will treat the school-choice win included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act as a starting point, not a finish line. Parents want options. The country needs academic recovery. Liberal activists in Los Angeles are organizing a new way to warn illegal aliens about Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Amanda Alcalde founded the Highland Park Community Support Group for ICE operations and began posting flyers about their new plan: Install sirens. The effort is not sanctioned by the city, so the group will have to find private property supporters and businesses where it can install the sirens. Activists already use whistles to alert each other about ICE agents. https://www.theblaze.com/news/ice-warning-sirens-los-angeles @patrician Thank for all the work you do for providing news reports for RITAN followers. You're welcome! Thanks for reading them!
EU Pressured Social Media Giants to Censor Americans’ Speech:
