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The Trump administration on Tuesday imposed visa bans on a former European Union commissioner and anti-disinformation activists it said were involved in censoring U.S. social media platforms, the latest move in a campaign targeting European rules that U.S. officials say go beyond legitimate regulation.
Trump officials have ordered U.S. diplomats to oppose the European Union’s landmark Digital Services Act (DSA), which aims to combat hate speech, misinformation and disinformation but which Washington says stifles free speech and imposes costs on U.S. technology companies.
The visa bans come after the administration’s National Security Strategy said this month that European leaders were censoring free speech and suppressing opposition to immigration policies. risk of “civilizational erasure” for the continent.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the five people targeted by visa bans “led organized efforts to coerce U.S. platforms to censor, demonetize, and remove U.S. viewpoints to which 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,” Rubio said in a statement.
Rubio did not name the individuals targeted, but Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers identified them on X, accusing the individuals of “fomenting censorship of American speech.”
The most high-profile target was former French business executive Thierry Breton, who served as EU internal market commissioner from 2019 to 2024. Rogers called Breton the “mastermind” of the DSA and said he had previously threatened President Donald Trump’s ally, X owner Elon Musk, before an interview Musk conducted with Trump. Reuters could not immediately reach Breton for comment.
Reuters reported in August that U.S. officials were considering sanctions against DSA officials.
French president criticizes decision
French President Emmanuel Macron criticized the decision to ban the individuals on Wednesday.
“France condemns the visa restriction measures taken by the United States against Thierry Breton and four other European figures. These measures constitute intimidation and coercion aimed at undermining European digital sovereignty,” Macron said on the social media platform
“Together with the European Commission and our European partners, we will continue to defend our digital sovereignty and our regulatory autonomy,” he added.
The European Commission also condemned the decision, a Commission spokesperson said on Wednesday, adding that the EU had requested clarification from US authorities.
“If necessary, we will respond quickly and decisively to defend our regulatory autonomy against unjustified measures,” he also said.
The Global Misinformation Index calls it “immoral”
The visa bans also hit Imran Ahmed, the British CEO of the US-based Center for Countering Digital Hate; Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon of the German nonprofit HateAid; and Clare Melford, co-founder of the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), Rogers said.
Hodenberg and Ballon said in a statement that the visa bans were an attempt to obstruct the enforcement of European law on U.S. companies operating in Europe. “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 said.
A GDI spokesperson called the U.S. action “immoral, illegal and un-American” and “an authoritarian attack on free speech and a blatant act of government censorship.”
Rogers said Melford falsely characterized online comments as hate speech or misinformation and used U.S. taxpayer dollars to “urge the censorship and blacklisting of American speech and the press.”
The Digital Hate Center did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Melford, a former management consultant and television executive, said in a video uploaded in 2024 that she co-founded GDI “to try to break the business model of harmful online content” by examining online news sites to allow advertisers to “choose whether or not they want to fund polarizing, divisive and harmful content, or whether they want to redirect their advertising toward higher quality journalism.”
