- The US is building a website to help users outside the US access banned content
- US officials discuss integrating a VPN feature
- The Freedom.gov project has faced delays due to legal concerns
The Trump administration is reportedly developing a new government-run website designed specifically to help internet users in Europe and elsewhere circumvent local content restrictions.
According to a Pakinomist report, the project was held at Freedom.govaims to provide access to material banned by foreign governments, including what some jurisdictions classify as “alleged hate speech and terrorist propaganda.”
The move marks a significant escalation in the ideological conflict between Washington and Brussels. While the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) requires platforms to remove illegal content and disinformation, the Trump administration views these rules as censorship aimed at American voices.
Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers is reportedly overseeing the project, which was expected to be launched at last week’s Munich Security Conference but was delayed. Sources told Pakinomist that some State Department lawyers have expressed concern about the plan, which could be seen as the US government actively encouraging citizens of allied nations to break their local laws.
Integrated VPN features are expected
The most technically important aspect of the proposal is the bypass method. Officials reportedly plan to integrate Virtual Private Network (VPN) functionality directly into the portal.
A source familiar with the plan told Pakinomist that officials had discussed including a feature to “make a user’s traffic appear to originate from the United States” and confirmed that “user activity on the site will not be tracked.”
If implemented, this would effectively make the US State Department the best-of-breed VPN provider, allowing users to tunnel out of their local digital borders to access US-hosted content. Currently, commercial VPNs are the primary tool for such evasion, but a state-sponsored tool represents a new frontier in digital diplomacy.
While the State Department denied that the program is specific to Europe, a spokesman told Pakinomist: “However, digital freedom is a priority for the State Department, and that includes the proliferation of privacy and censorship-bypass technologies like VPNs.”
Currently, the Freedom.gov domain displays a logo for “National Design Studio” and the phrase “fly eagle fly.”
‘A direct shot’ at EU rules
The initiative comes amid a wider diplomatic fallout. Relations have been strained by disputes over trade, Russia’s war in Ukraine and President Trump’s reported push to assert control over Greenland.
The conflict has also drawn in big tech figures. Edward Coristine, a former member of Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), is reportedly working with the National Design Studio on the Freedom.gov project. The studio itself was created by the president to “beautify government websites.”
Musk himself has frequently clashed with European regulators, and his Platform X was fined $140 million by the European Union in December for failing to comply with transparency rules.
Kenneth Propp, a former State Department official now at the Atlantic Council, described the new portal to Pakinomist as “a direct shot” at European regulations and warned that it “would be perceived in Europe as an American effort to thwart national regulations.”
European regulators often require US websites to remove content as a last resort. For example, in 2024 Germany issued 482 takedown orders for material it deemed to support terrorism. The new US portal appears to be designed specifically to undermine these orders by providing a permanent, US-hosted loophole.
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