The United States has imposed visa bans on five Europeans, including a former European Union commissioner, accusing them of pressuring tech firms to censor and suppress “American viewpoints they oppose.”
According to Al Jazeera, in a statement on Tuesday, December 23, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio characterised the individuals as “radical activists” who had “advanced censorship crackdowns” by foreign states against “American speakers and American companies.”
He wrote on X, “For far too long, ideologues in Europe have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose.”
“The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship,” Rubio added.
The most prominent target was Thierry Breton, who served as the European commissioner for the internal market from 2019-2024.
Sarah Rogers, the undersecretary for public diplomacy, described the French businessman as the “mastermind” of the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), a landmark law intended to combat hateful speech, misinformation and disinformation on online platforms.
Rogers also accused Breton of using the DSA to threaten Elon Musk, the owner of X and a close ally of US President Donald Trump, ahead of an interview Musk conducted with Trump during last year’s presidential campaign.
