Censorship in the European Union

European Union governing bodies have the power to impose various forms of censorship in member countries. The topic of whether laws limiting certain types of speech amount to censorship, and whether such laws are desirable to protect against harmful content and misinformation, has been the subject of significant debate in Europe.

Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union protects freedom of expression, though it may be subject to restrictions or penalties "as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary." If an actor is affiliated with a foreign state, it cannot invoke protection under the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and if an actor is not, the specific nature of the content could still lead to restrictions.

Council Regulation 2022/350

Council of the European Union Regulation 2022/350, passed in 2022, bans "transmission or distribution by any means" of any content from sanctioned Russian state media actors. The regulation led to a ban on Russia Today and Sputnik within the EU, as well as other major outlets. In March 2025, European Parliament Vice-President Pina Picierno notably pressured Italian state broadcaster RAI to cancel an interview with sanctioned Russian TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov.

The European Commission justified the regulation as necessary to counter Russian propaganda following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, though various civil liberties groups, NGOs, and media groups such as the European Federation of Journalists, criticized the approach. Seamus Allen of the Institute of International and European Affairs wrote that through the law, the EU had given itself "the power to engage in censorship based on subjective criteria that are vague, subjective, and potentially arbitrary, via a decision-making process with minimal checks, balances, or transparency and in a manner that can potentially have an excessively broad scope of application". He wrote that the law's precedent would empower the EU to ban the content of such media organisations that engage in the "manipulation and distortion of facts", and that it would be up to the Council to determine what constitutes this. Academics Natali Helberger and Wolfgang Schulz noted that the scope of the law was far greater than any EU content moderation beforehand, as it was a sweeping ban on both audiovisual and social media content.

Regulation 2021/784

Regulation 2021/784, passed in April 2021, was criticized as censorship by European Digital Rights, Access Now, the Civil Liberties Union for Europe and other civil society organizations. Critics pointed to a provision that allows an EU country to request instant removal of content designated as "terrorist" as one that could be misused to censor, or lead to social media platforms incorrectly using automated content moderation to remove legal speech. According to Anna Mazgal of Wikimedia Deutschland, the law gives "further sweeping powers to law enforcement authorities to crack down on legitimate protests, freedom of expression, and media and artistic freedoms online."

Digital Services Act

The EU Digital Services Act, passed in 2022, compels online platforms to remove illegal content including hate speech and misinformation within the European Union. Under the DSA, the EU can suspend access to a platform if it determines its breach of law "persists and causes serious harm to users and entails criminal offences involving threat to persons' life or safety".

The law has notably been criticized by American social media CEOs Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, as well as United States Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr, as censorship; though the European Union has argued against this notion. According to a March 2025 statement by Henna Virkkunen, the EU's Executive Vice-president of the European Commission for Technological Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, the law "guarantees" free speech as it requires platforms to be transparent about how they handle content, and the European Union or national regulators "have no power to moderate content or to impose any specific approach to moderation" under the DSA.

Under the DSA, online platforms must adopt "reasonable, proportionate and effective" measures to mitigate "systemic risks" in four categories: dissemination of illegal content; negative effects for the exercise of fundamental rights; negative effects on civic discourse and electoral processes, and public security; and negative effects in relation to gender-based violence, the protection of public health and minors and serious negative consequences to the person's physical and mental well-being health crises. The criteria of "systemic risks" were described as vague by Joan Barata of the Center for European Policy Analysis, who argued that this could lead platforms to over-enforce and remove legal speech.

In 2023, European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton suggested using the DSA to shut down social media platforms if they don't remove content inciting civil unrest. After 65 civil society organizations asked Breton for clarification, he issued a statement that the EU opposes blocking or limiting content on an arbitrary basis.

A 2024 report by the Future of Free Speech think tank at Vanderbilt University found that "a substantial majority" (87.5% to 99.7%) of comments deleted under the DSA on Facebook and YouTube in France, Germany, and Sweden were "legally permissible". The study suggested that "platforms, pages, or channels may be over-removing content to avoid regulatory penalties" under the DSA.