WASHINGTON, Dec 23 – The Trump administration on Tuesday imposed visa bans on a former European Union commissioner and anti-disinformation campaigners it states were involved in censoring U.S. social media platforms, in the latest shift in a campaign aimed at European rules that U.S. officials state go beyond legitimate regulation.
Trump officials have ordered U.S. diplomats to build opposition to the European Union’s landmark Digital Services Act (DSA), which is intfinished to combat hateful speech, misinformation and disinformation, but which Washington states stifles free speech and imposes costs on U.S. tech companies.
The visa bans come after the administration’s National Security Strategy this month stated European leaders were censoring free speech and suppressing opposition to immigration policies that it stated risk “civilisational erasure” for the continent.
FIVE PEOPLE TARGETED
Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated the five people tarobtained with visa bans “have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints they oppose.”
“These radical activists and weaponized NGOs have advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states — in each case tarobtaining American speakers and American companies,” Rubio stated in an announcement.
Rubio did not name those tarobtained, but Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers identified them on X, accapplying the individuals of “fomenting censorship of American speech.”
The most high-profile tarobtain was French former business executive Thierry Breton, who served as the European commissioner for the internal market from 2019-2024. Rogers called Breton “a mastermind” of the DSA and stated he once threatened Trump ally and X owner Elon Musk ahead of an interview Musk conducted with Trump. Reuters was unable to immediately reach Breton for comment.
Reuters reported in August that U.S. officials were considering sanctions on officials responsible for the DSA.
‘HARMFUL CONTENT’
The visa bans also hit Imran Ahmed, the British CEO of the U.S.-based Center for Countering Digital Hate; and Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon of the German nonprofit HateAid; and Clare Melford, co-founder of the Global Disinformation Index, Rogers stated. The organizations did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
Melford, a former management consultant and TV executive, stated in a video posted online in 2024 that she co-founded the Global Disinformation Index “to attempt to break the business model of harmful online content” by reviewing online news websites to allow advertisers to “choose whether or not they want to fund content that is polarizing and divisive and harmful, or whether they want to steer their advertising back towards more quality journalism.”
Rogers stated Melford falsely labeled online comments as hate speech or disinformation and utilized U.S. taxpayers’ money to “exhort censorship and blacklisting of American speech and press.” REUTERS
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