EU ready to crack down if digital platforms broadcast live execution of American

The European Union (EU) warned digital platforms on Monday October 12 against broadcasting live the planned execution in the United States of a murderer of American soldiers. Nidal Hasan, 56, is to be shot on December 3, 2026 on a base in Texas where he killed 13 people in 2009. A US Department of Defense official assured that the public execution would be broadcast live, information on which the Trump administration has since cast doubt.

Could this execution then be broadcast in Europe? Under EU digital rules, platforms are required to “diligently apply their own rules of use,” explained Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier. “If we look at certain platforms, Meta explicitly prohibits live broadcasting of capital executions, while X and TikTok prohibit content that is shocking or advocates violence,” he detailed. This spokesperson said he had no comment to provide on what the platforms are doing in the United States.

“But in Europe we have clear rules,” he added, referring to the European Regulation on Digital Services (DSA) which concerns, among other things, the fight against illegal content. If networks do not apply their own rules, then the EU would use the powers given to it by its digital rules to prevent this. The Trump administration regularly criticizes these rules, seeing them as an instrument of “censorship”, an accusation that the European Union firmly rejects.