US denies visas to former EU commissioner and others over social media rules

The US State Department said it would deny visas to five people, including a former EU commissioner, for seeking to “coerce” US social media platforms into removing views they oppose.

“These radical activists and armed NGOs have advanced the crackdown on censorship by foreign states – in each case targeting American speakers and American businesses,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.

Thierry Breton, the former high-tech regulator at the European Commission, suggested a “witch hunt” was taking place.

Breton has been described by the State Department as the “mastermind” of the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which mandates content moderation on social media companies.

However, this project has aroused the anger of certain American conservatives who see it as a desire to censor right-wing opinions. Brussels denies it.

Breton clashed with Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and owner of X, over the obligation to follow EU rules.

The European Commission recently fined €120 million (£105 million) for its blue tick badges – the first fine under the DSA. He said the platform’s blue tick system was “misleading” because the company did not “meaningfully verify users.”

In response, Elon Musk’s site blocked the Commission from running ads on its platform.

Reacting to the visa ban, Breton posted on X: “To our American friends: censorship is not where you think it is.”

Also on the list was Clare Melford, who runs the UK-based Global Disinformation Index (GDI).

US Deputy Secretary of State Sarah B Rogers accused the GDI of using US taxpayers’ money “to urge censorship and blacklisting of American speech and press”.

A GDI spokesperson told the BBC that “the visa sanctions announced today are an authoritarian attack on freedom of expression and a blatant act of government censorship.”

“The Trump administration is, once again, using the full weight of the federal government to intimidate, censor and silence voices it disagrees with. Its actions today are immoral, illegal and un-American.”

Imran Ahmed of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a nonprofit that fights online hate and misinformation, was also banned.

Rogers called Mr. Ahmed “a key contributor to the Biden administration’s efforts to weaponize the government against American citizens.”

The BBC has contacted the CCDH for comment.

Also banned were Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon of HateAid, a German organization that the State Department said helped enforce the DSA.

In a statement to the BBC, the two CEOs called it “an act of repression by a government that increasingly disregards the rule of law and attempts to silence its critics by any means necessary.”

“We will not be intimidated by a government that uses accusations of censorship to silence those who defend human rights and freedom of expression,” they added.

Rubio said steps have been taken to impose visa restrictions on “agents of the global censorship industrial complex who, as a result, will generally be barred from entering the United States.”

“President Trump has made clear that his ‘America First’ foreign policy rejects violations of American sovereignty. The extraterritorial reach of foreign censors targeting American speech is no exception,” he added.