The United States has created a new online portal designed to allow users in Europe to access content blocked under local regulations, including material classified as hate speech or terrorism-related, according to Reuters.

The site, called freedom.gov, is intended to enable users worldwide to bypass government-imposed controls. Its homepage features an image of a spectral horse galloping above the Earth alongside the slogan: “Information is power. Reclaim your human right to free expression. Get ready.”

Although reports indicate the platform was developed by the US State Department, domain registration records show it is administered by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security. DHS also oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Shift from internet freedom programs

The initiative follows the Trump administration’s decision to scale back the State Department’s long-running Internet Freedom program, which had funded grassroots groups around the world to develop technologies aimed at circumventing censorship. Over the past decade, the program distributed more than $500m to digital rights experts in countries including Myanmar, Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela to allegedly "build tools enabling citizens to access the broader internet."

The program came amid heightened geopolitical tensions, as Washington has openly expressed support for political change in countries such as Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela. At the same time, critics argue that US foreign policy often intersects with strategic resource interests in key regions.

Myanmar, for instance, is widely recognized as a global hub for critical, high-value minerals. It holds significant reserves of heavy rare earth elements such as dysprosium and terbium, along with tin, copper, and nickel, in addition to valuable jade and rubies. These resources are essential for advanced technologies, renewable energy systems, and defense industries, making the country strategically important in the global supply chain.

In Latin America, Venezuela possesses some of the world’s largest proven oil reserves, long placing it at the center of international energy politics. The United States has recently abducted the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, and then taken direct control of its oil.

Concerns over centralization and privacy

Those technologies were also cited as having enabled armed rioters to coordinate and exploit otherwise peaceful protests, facilitating violent activity, and were termed as links to foreign intelligence services, including Mossad and the United States.

According to sources cited by Reuters, freedom.gov appears to represent an effort to redirect,  and potentially politicize, that earlier program.

A former US official described the new portal as largely symbolic. “It feels mostly performative. It reads more like a combative policy declaration. USG 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.”

The earlier Internet Freedom initiatives supported open-source, privacy-preserving tools that could be independently audited and were designed to shield users from surveillance. These projects were typically developed by technologists attuned to local censorship environments rather than by US corporations.

By contrast, while freedom.gov is framed as an “internet freedom” effort, it does not appear to prioritize user privacy and instead channels traffic through a centralized 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 previously worked on US-backed internet freedom programs.

EU regulations and political tensions

The restrictions the portal seeks to bypass differ from sweeping internet shutdowns. Instead, they involve European regulations targeting hate speech and illegal content, including measures under the EU’s Digital Services Act and 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,” Ford Lyons said.

Nina Jankowicz, a former US official and disinformation researcher, warned that circumventing European content bans could expose users to harmful material. “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,” she said.

Jankowicz also questioned why the site appeared to be administered by CISA, whose previous mandate included safeguarding US election infrastructure and countering foreign disinformation. “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,” she stressed.

Growing US–EU tech dispute

The launch comes amid mounting tensions between the Trump administration, major US technology companies, and the European Union over the bloc’s regulatory approach to Big Tech. The European Commission has opened an investigation into X over the spread of sexualized deepfakes and has threatened action against Meta over alleged antitrust violations.

In December, the Trump administration barred five Europeans,  including former EU commissioner Thierry Breton, from entering the United States in connection with their work regulating hate speech and disinformation.

The dispute was foreshadowed by Vice President JD Vance in a speech at the Munich Security Conference last year, where he criticized Europe’s approach to media censorship, content moderation and political correctness, arguing 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,” Jankowicz said.

“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,” he added.

A State Department spokesperson told Reuters that the US does not operate a censorship-circumvention program specifically targeting 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.”

Madhu Gottumukkala, acting director of CISA, said the agency manages the .gov domain registry to ensure that only verified US government entities receive official domains.

“While CISA does not control the content on those sites, our mission is unwavering: to strengthen America’s cybersecurity, safeguard critical infrastructure, and build a resilient digital ecosystem to protect the homeland. For content of the site we refer you to the Department of State,” he added.