A set of internal documents published by the Republican members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee (Judiciary GOP) has sent shockwaves through Brussels. The documents point to systematic intervention by the European Commission to shape political and electoral discourse across several countries.
Released under the title The EU Censorship Files, Part II, the investigation presents documentary evidence of a sustained strategy by the European Commission to influence public debate on social media and digital platforms, pressuring major tech companies to censor lawful content, alter their internal rules, and restrict certain political viewpoints. This policy began as early as 2015, when the European Commission created ‘codes’ and ‘forums’ through which it could pressure platforms to censor speech more aggressively.” These mechanisms, publicly presented as voluntary and consensus-based, functioned in practice as tools of regulatory coercion.
The revelations go far beyond an abstract debate over content moderation. According to the material made public, the Commission has directly or indirectly intervened in at least eight electoral processes across six European countries since 2023, using high-level meetings with digital platforms in the days and weeks leading up to elections to demand stricter censorship of political speech.
The most sensitive aspect of the report is the direct link between these practices and specific electoral processes. Since 2023, the Commission held meetings with digital platforms ahead of national elections in Ireland in both 2024 and 2025; in France in 2024; in the Netherlands in 2023 and again in 2025; in Slovakia in 2023; in Moldova in 2024; and in Romania that same year. In every case, the meetings took place at critical moments of the campaign and were aimed at intensifying the censorship of political content deemed problematic.