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Washington, D.C. — The National Center for Public Policy Research’s Free Enterprise Project (FEP) has filed a shareholder proposal with Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT), calling on the company to evaluate the risks of its European Security Program (ESP) being used to facilitate censorship of legitimate speech.
The proposal, submitted earlier this summer, comes amid heightened scrutiny from policymakers and civil liberties advocates over the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) and related regulations that threaten to export European-style censorship into the United States.
Microsoft’s ESP, announced on June 4, 2025, provides European governments — including all 27 EU member states and the U.K. — free access to powerful AI-driven tools and partnerships with groups like Europol and the CyberPeace Institute. Both entities cite combating “hate speech” and “harmful content” as part of their mission. As FEP’s shareholder proposal notes, these are vague and manipulable terms that risk being weaponized against lawful expression that would be protected under the U.S. Constitution.
Stefan Padfield
“Microsoft is potentially taking on enormous risks by embedding itself in the EU’s censorship infrastructure,” said FEP Executive Director Stefan Padfield. “Shareholders deserve to know whether these initiatives could make the company complicit in silencing Americans’ speech at the behest of foreign governments — and whether those risks could lead to another multibillion-dollar scandal like Cambridge Analytica.”
“Microsoft, like many large tech companies, is on the front line of developing a technology which will likely fundamentally change how people interact with computers, potentially forever,” added FEP Associate Bennett Nuss. “However, those developing artificial intelligence cannot be willfully blind to the eminently foreseeable downstream effects of its creation, especially in the realm of automatic curtailment of human expression and free speech by the programs it creates and licenses.”
Bennett Nuss
Concerns over the EU’s censorship model have grown significantly in recent weeks. In a letter to tech companies, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan demanded records of communications with foreign governments about speech regulation, citing the EU and U.K. specifically.
Separately, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has warned that the Digital Services Act “could cripple free speech even in America” by pressuring platforms to silence content that is disfavored by European regulators.
ADF’s analysis echoes reporting from outlets such as The Daily Wire, which highlighted how members of Congress are increasingly alarmed at the EU’s efforts to export its censorship regime across the Atlantic. Lawmakers have raised the possibility that U.S. companies could be effectively deputized by Brussels to regulate American political and religious expression.
“The stakes are high,” Padfield continued. “If Microsoft’s partnerships empower the EU to dictate what Americans can say online, then the company risks not only its reputation but also its bottom line. Shareholders must be assured that Microsoft is not becoming a conduit for unconstitutional foreign censorship.”
FEP’s shareholder resolution calls on Microsoft’s Board of Directors to produce a report within the next year, at reasonable cost and omitting confidential details, assessing the risks of ESP being used to censor lawful speech.
About
The National Center for Public Policy Research, founded in 1982, is a non-partisan, free-market, independent conservative think-tank. Ninety-four percent of its support comes from individuals, less than four percent from foundations and less than two percent from corporations. It receives over 350,000 individual contributions a year from over 60,000 active recent contributors.
The Free Enterprise Project, the original and premier opponent of the woke takeover of American corporate life, aims to push corporations to respect their fiduciary obligations and to stay out of political and social engineering. More information about this proposal can be found in FEP’s mobile and web app, ProxyNavigator.
Contributions are tax-deductible and may be earmarked for the Free Enterprise Project.
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Author: The National Center
