US builds website that will allow Europeans to view blocked content
The US has built a portal that will allow Europeans to view blocked content including alleged hate speech and terrorism, according to Reuters.The portal, “freedom.gov”, will allow worldwide users to circumvent government controls on their content.The site features a graphic of a ghostly horse galloping above the Earth, and the motto: “Information is power.Reclaim your human right to free expression.
Get ready.”Though reports suggest the portal was developed by the state department, the domain appears to be administered by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which is a branch of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).The DHS also administers Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE).It comes after the Trump administration largely gutted a state department programme called Internet Freedom, which funded grassroots groups worldwide that built technologies to circumvent censorship.Over the past decade, this programme gave more than $500m to digital rights experts – from Myanmar to Iran to Cuba to Venezuela – who built tools used by local populations to access the global internet.
Those tools allowed pictures and videos to filter out of Iran during the recent internet shutdown; they are heavily used by journalists and activists worldwide.Freedom.gov appears to be an effort to redirect and politicise the Internet Freedom programme, according to sources.A former US official said: “It feels mostly performative.It reads more like a combative policy declaration.
USG [US government] disagreements with the EU on free speech are nothing new as a matter of policy.But a portal of this kind takes it a step further, declaring publicly that the USG is concerned with freedom of expression even among our allies in Europe.”Internet Freedom funded tools that are open-source and privacy-preserving – technologies whose code can be audited and that do not expose their users to surveillance.These tools were not designed by US businesses, but by technologists around the world attuned to local censorship regimes.While freedom.
gov is ostensibly also an “internet freedom” project, it does not propose to preserve privacy – instead, it appears to funnel users into an opaque, central system controlled by a US government agency,“What you’re now talking about is concentrating traffic through a US federal agency organised and kept closed – as opposed to multiple internet freedom, open-source, privacy-preserving projects,” said Andrew Ford Lyons, an independent consultant on digital security and media resilience, who worked on previous US internet freedom projects,The “censorships” that the site purports to counter are not internet shutdowns or broad restrictions on content such as those in place in China and Iran, but European restrictions on hate speech and illegal content such as those in the Digital Services Act, or the UK’s Online Safety Act,“When I worked with journalists in Myanmar or civil society in Afghanistan, I was helping get the right tools to the right people to do whatever they want,This is very specifically to help, like, an angry man in Schöndorf see neo-Nazi tweets from a guy in Arkansas,” said Ford Lyons.
“If the Trump administration is alleging that they’re gonna be bypassing content bans, what they’re gonna be helping users access in Europe is essentially hate speech, pornography, and child sexual abuse material,” said Nina Jankowicz, a former US official and disinformation expert.Jankowicz added it was odd that the site appeared administered by CISA, whose remit before Trump included election infrastructure and foreign disinformation in the US.“The site is in and of itself a propaganda tool,” she said.CISA “is the group that used to make sure secretaries of state were equipped with the tools that they needed to fight foreign disinformation.Now what we’re alleging is that our allies in Europe somehow pose a greater threat to Americans than the national security threats posed by Russia, China.
”The Trump administration and US tech companies are in an escalating tussle with the EU over the bloc’s efforts to regulate big tech companies.The European Commission has launched an investigation into X over its propagation of sexualised deepfakes; earlier this month it threatened action against Meta over an apparent breach of its antitrust rules.Meanwhile, in December, the Trump administration barred five Europeans, including the former EU commissioner Thierry Breton, from entering the US over their work to regulate hate speech and disinformation.This confrontation was prefigured by US vice-president, JD Vance, in a speech at the Munich Security Conference last year, in which he lambasted Europe for media censorship, content moderation and political correctness, saying that free speech was in retreat.“This has been like a crusade of the Trump administration, even before they got into office.
This free speech issue is one that they believe plays well with their base,” said Jankowicz.“What they’re able to say is this kind of us-versus-them dichotomy: the US is defending free speech and all of these other countries that are regulating the internet.”A state department spokesperson told Reuters the US government did not have a censorship-circumvention programme 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.”CISA has been approached for comment.
Winter Olympics 2026: GB men win curling semi-final and Alysa Liu’s skating gold – as it happened
But before I go, here are a couple of reports:GB edge thriller in men’s curling semi-final:USA stun Canada in overtime to claim gold in women’s ice hockey:That’ll do from me. What a night of Olympic action. Here’s a quick round-up:GB beat Switzerland 8-5 in men’s curling to progress to gold medal match on Saturday. They’ll play Canada who edged Norway 5-4.USA beat Canada 2-1 in overtime to win gold in women’s ice hockey
Britain’s curlers guarantee a medal as Mouat holds his nerve against Swiss
Call it the Cortina Comeback. At nine o’clock on Thursday morning, Great Britain’s men’s curling team didn’t even know whether they would be in the Olympic semi-finals. By nine o’clock on Thursday night, they had won themselves a place in Saturday’s final against Canada by beating the undefeated Swiss team 8-5.The British, who scraped through the round robin only because the Italian team lost their last group stage game to the Swiss on Thursday morning, had promised that they would be an entirely different proposition if they got to the knockout rounds, and they were as good as their word.“An emotional rollercoaster is probably the way to describe this whole week, never mind just that game,” said Hammy McMillan
Hull KR on top of the world after resisting thrilling Brisbane fightback
Rugby league is never short on incredible stories but even by the sport’s lofty standards, Hull KR’s rise to the greatest club side in the game feels too far-fetched for even the greatest of Hollywood script-writers.For 40 years, Hull KR have not just been in the shadows in this rugby league-obsessed city, second fiddle to their bitter rivals whose home they filled to be crowned world champions for the very first time, they have been in the sport’s entire wilderness. Until now.At the turn of the century, there very nearly wasn’t even a Hull KR. Crippled by financial ruin and with crowds barely exceeding 1,000 on occasions as they languished in the second and third tiers, the notion of nights like these ever becoming a reality was nothing other than impossible for a club suffocated by the grip of failure
USA roar back from brink to beat Canada in overtime and claim Olympic women’s ice hockey gold
Rescued from the brink of defeat by a deft touch from their captain in her final Olympics, the US beat Canada in Milan on Thursday to claim the women’s ice hockey gold medal.Hilary Knight got engaged this week to the American speed skater, Brittany Bowe, and the 36-year-old now has another reason to celebrate. Out-fought and out-thought by their great rivals for much of this contest, the Americans were poised to lose to a team they had thumped 5-0 in the preliminary round only nine days earlier.ScheduleAll times Eastern.Thu 5 Feb USA 5-1 CzechiaSat 7 Feb USA 5-0 FinlandMon 9 Feb Switzerland 0-5 USATue 10 Feb Canada 0-5 USAFri 13 Feb Quarter-final: USA 6-0 Italy Mon 16 Feb Semi-final: USA 5-0 SwedenThu 19 Feb Final: USA 2-1 Canada (OT) Roster breakdownThe 2026 US Olympic women's ice hockey team features 23 players, 13 forwards, seven defenders and three goaltenders, and boasts 21 returnees from the 2025 US women's national team that took home gold at the 2025 IIHF Women's World Championship in April
Winter Olympics women’s ice hockey final: USA beat Canada 2-1 in overtime – as it happened
And the report from tonight’s game can be found here:Not enough overtime action for you. Norway has taken the Canadian curling men to an extra end!Maybe I’ll watch that now. Time to sign off from here, but there’s still a little bit of curling and a good bit of figure skating to follow today and a big three-day weekend ahead. We might even see the USA v Canada on the hockey ice again for another final on Sunday, this time in the men’s game.Thanks for the emails
Itoje warns against ‘corrosive’ social media after racist abuse of Edogbo
The England captain, Maro Itoje, has warned of the corrosive effect of social media on professional athletes and wider society before the crucial Six Nations encounter with Ireland on Saturday.Itoje will win his 100th England cap at Twickenham in what has become a must-win game for the hosts after last weekend’s deflating defeat by Scotland at Murrayfield. The buildup has been marred by racist abuse on social media of the Ireland second row Edwin Edogbo, after the 23-year-old made his debut from the replacements’ bench in their win against Italy in round two.Itoje said the abuse of Edogbo was “incredibly sad” and spelled out the danger of the online world, explaining why he believes the wider damage it is causing will become clear. “Social media has been a force for good in many ways but it’s also been a force for negativity in a lot of other ways,” Itoje said
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