Politics
US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere
- Launch planned for last week was delayed.
- Portal team includes former DOGE member Coristine.
- Officials discussed including a VPN function.
The US State Department is developing an online portal that will enable people in Europe and elsewhere to see content banned by their governments including alleged hate speech and terrorist propaganda, a move Washington views as a way to counter censorship, three sources familiar with the plan said.
The site will be hosted at “freedom.gov,” the sources said. One source said officials had discussed including a virtual private network function to make a user’s traffic appear to originate in the U.S. and added that user activity on the site will not be tracked.
Headed by Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers, the project was expected to be unveiled at last week’s Munich Security Conference but was delayed, the sources said.
Reuters could not determine why the launch did not happen, but some State Department officials, including lawyers, have raised concerns about the plan, two of the sources said, without detailing the concerns.
The project could further strain ties between the Trump administration and traditional US allies in Europe, already heightened by disputes over trade, Russia’s war in Ukraine and President Donald Trump’s push to assert control over Greenland.
The portal could also put Washington in the unfamiliar position of appearing to encourage citizens to flout local laws.
In a statement to Reuters, a State Department spokesperson said the US government does not have a censorship-circumvention program specific to Europe but added: “Digital freedom is a priority for the State Department, however, and that includes the proliferation of privacy and censorship-circumvention technologies like VPNs.”
The spokesperson denied any announcement had been delayed and said it was inaccurate that State Department lawyers had raised concerns.
The Trump administration has made free speech, particularly what it sees as the stifling of conservative voices online, a focus of its foreign policy including in Europe and in Brazil.
Europe’s approach to free speech differs from the US, where the Constitution protects virtually all expression. The European Union’s limits grew from efforts to fight any resurgence of extremist propaganda that fueled Nazism including its vilification of Jews, foreigners and minorities.
US officials have denounced EU policies that they say are suppressing right-wing politicians, including in Romania, Germany and France, and have claimed rules like the EU’s Digital Services Act and Britain’s Online Safety Act limit free speech.
The EU delegation in Washington, which acts like an embassy for the 27-country bloc, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the U.S. plan.
In rules that fall most heavily on social media sites and large platforms like Meta’s Facebook and X, the EU restricts the availability — and in some cases requires rapid removal — of content classified as illegal hate speech, terrorist propaganda or harmful disinformation under a group of rules, laws and decisions since 2008.
Friction with European regulators
Rogers of the State Department has emerged as an outspoken advocate of the Trump administration’s position on EU content policies. She has visited more than half a dozen European countries since taking office in October and met with representatives of right-wing groups that the administration says are being oppressed. The department did not make Rogers available for an interview.
In a National Security Strategy published in December, the Trump administration warned that Europe faced “civilisational erasure” because of its migration policies. It said the US would prioritise “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations.”
EU regulators regularly require US-based sites to remove content and can impose bans as a measure of last resort. X, which is owned by Trump ally Elon Musk, was hit with a 120 million-euro fine in December for noncompliance.
Germany, for example, in 2024 issued 482 removal orders for material it deemed supported or incited terrorism and forced providers to take down 16,771 pieces of content.
Similarly, Meta’s oversight board in 2024 ordered the removal of a Polish political party’s posts that used a racial slur and depicted immigrants as rapists, a content category EU law treats as illegal hate speech.
Calling the US plan “a direct shot” at European rules and laws, former State Department official Kenneth Propp, who worked on European digital regulations and is now at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Centre, said freedom.gov “would be perceived in Europe as a US effort to frustrate national law provisions.”
Also involved in the US portal effort is Edward Coristine, a former member of Musk’s job-slashing Department of Government Efficiency, two sources said. Coristine works with the National Design Studio, created by Trump to beautify government websites. Reuters was unable to reach Coristine for comment.
It was not clear what advantages the US government portal would offer users that are not available from commercial VPNs.
The web address freedom.gov was registered on January 12, according to the federal registry get.gov. On Wednesday, the site had no content but showed the National Design Studio’s logo, the words “fly, eagle, fly” and a log-in form.
Before Trump’s second term, the US government helped fund commercial VPNs and other tools as part of efforts to “promote democracy globally” and help users access free information in China, Iran, Russia, Belarus, Cuba, Myanmar and other countries.
- Washington-Tehran indirect discussions aimed at averting crisis
- White House reviews regional US troop deployment, set by mid-Mar.
- Secretary of State Marco Rubio to meet Netanyahu on Feb 28 over Iran.
Iran is expected to submit a formal proposal outlining steps to ease tensions with the United States, following indirect talks in Geneva on Tuesday, a senior US official told Reuters on Wednesday.
The discussions, involving US envoys and Iran’s top diplomat, aimed to prevent the standoff from escalating further.
Top US national security advisers met in the White House Situation Room on Wednesday to discuss Iran and were told all US military forces deployed to the region should be in place by mid-March, the official said.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel to discuss Iran on February 28, the official said.
Tuesday’s indirect discussions in Geneva between US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, alongside Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, were aimed at heading off a mounting crisis between the two countries.
The United States wants Iran to give up its nuclear programme, and Iran has adamantly refused and denied that it is trying to develop an atomic weapon.
Iran agreed to make a written proposal on how to address US concerns during the Geneva talks, the senior US official said.
“We are currently waiting for that from the Iranians,” the official said.
The US has sought to expand the scope of talks to non-nuclear issues such as Iran’s missile stockpile. Iran says it is willing only to discuss curbs on its nuclear programme, in exchange for sanctions relief, and that it will not give up uranium enrichment completely or discuss its missile programme.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Wednesday that some progress was made in Geneva but that “we’re still very apart on some issues.”
Trump has ordered a major military buildup in the region as he contemplates the use of force with a second aircraft carrier group en route.
“The president has ordered the continued buildup in the region, including the arrival of the second carrier group. Full forces should be in place by mid-March,” the senior US official said.
- Rescue teams contending with dangerous conditions.
- Sheriff says avalanche danger was widely forecast.
- Avalanches claim average of 27 lives each winter in US.
At least eight skiers died in an avalanche in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains, and a ninth is presumed dead, authorities said on Wednesday, making the disaster one of the deadliest single avalanches in US history.
Rescuers on skis were able to reach six survivors amid an intense winter storm that had dropped several feet of fresh snow on the high Sierra in recent days. One skier remains unaccounted for.
The avalanche – the length of a football field, according to authorities – struck in the Castle Peak area of Truckee, California, about 10 miles north of Lake Tahoe, around 11:30am Pacific time on Tuesday, engulfing a group of backcountry skiers who were completing a three-day guided excursion.
One of the rescued skiers is still being treated in a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, Nevada County Sheriff Shannan Moon said at a press conference on Wednesday afternoon.
The survivors had taken refuge in a makeshift shelter, constructed partly from tarpaulin sheets, and communicated with rescuers via radio beacon and text messaging.
Two rescue teams, totalling about 50 members, were dispatched from the Boreal Mountain Ski Resort and Tahoe Donner’s Alder Creek Adventure Center and approached the avalanche zone from the south and north.
Extreme conditions for rescuers
The rescuers faced “extreme” conditions, Moon said, including blinding snow and gale-force winds. A team was able to use a snowcat vehicle to get within two miles of the survivors and then ski to the accident site.
The eight dead skiers were found with their beacons active, and their bodies will be recovered when weather permits, authorities said. One was married to a member of the search-and-rescue team.
The group of skiers had been finishing a three-day excursion with Blackbird Mountain Guides at the time of the avalanche. The tour group included four guides and 11 clients, who stayed at the Frog Lake Backcountry Huts located near Donner Summit, just northwest of Truckee, at about 7,500 feet elevation (2,300 meters).
In a typical winter, the mountain receives more than 400 inches of snow, making it one of the snowiest places in the western hemisphere.
Moon noted that forecasts widely predicted the storm and attendant avalanche danger and said her office is still talking with the guide company about its decision to take people out.
The Sierra Avalanche Center extended the avalanche warning it issued on Tuesday, saying a “great” danger might continue throughout the day on Wednesday.
Blackbird issued a statement on Tuesday saying it was working with authorities to support the rescue operation.
The company was founded in 2020 and operates in California, Washington state and British Columbia, as well as numerous popular skiing spots abroad, according to its website. The company provides guided ski trips, alpine climbing trips and avalanche education.
Avalanches have claimed an average of 27 lives each winter in the United States over the past decade, according to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center, which had tallied six US avalanche fatalities so far this season before Tuesday’s disaster.
- UAE president, US senator discuss regional security, stability.
- Meeting takes place at presidential palace, Qasr Al Shati: WAM.
- Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohamed, others attend high-level meeting.
United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan met US Senator Lindsey Graham on Wednesday in Abu Dhabi, where they discussed regional developments and joint efforts to promote peace in the Middle East.
The meeting was held at Qasr Al Shati, the UAE’s WAM news agency reported, releasing photographs and video of Sheikh Mohammed and senior Emirati officials in talks with the US senator.
The two sides discussed the friendship and strategic cooperation between the UAE and the United States and their shared commitment to strengthening their partnership in support of mutual interests, according to the Emirates news agency.
The meeting also addressed regional developments, as well as matters concerning regional security and stability and joint efforts to promote peace in the Middle East and beyond.
The meeting was attended by Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Chairman of the Presidential Court for Special Affairs, and Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad bin Tahnoun Al Nahyan, Adviser to the UAE President, along with a number of ministers and senior officials.
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