Former EU commissioner and activists barred from US in attack on European tech regulators

The state department has barred five Europeans from the US, accusing them of leading efforts to pressure tech firms to censor or suppress American viewpoints, in the latest attack on European regulations that target hate speech and misinformation.Secretary of state Marco Rubio said the five people targeted with visa bans – who include former European Commissioner Thierry Breton – 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 targeting American speakers and American companies,” Rubio said in an announcement.In recent months, Trump officials have ordered US diplomats to build opposition to the European Union’s landmark Digital Services Act (DSA), which is intended to combat hateful speech, misinformation and disinformation, but which Washington says stifles free speech and imposes costs on US tech companies.Late on Tuesday night, Breton posted on social media: “Is McCarthy’s witch hunt back?”Tuesday’s move is part of a Trump administration campaign against foreign influence over online speech, using immigration law rather than platform regulations or sanctions. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, those targeted will generally be barred from entering the US, and some may face removal proceedings if already in the country.Rubio did not name those targeted, but under secretary for public diplomacy Sarah Rogers identified them on X, accusing the individuals of “fomenting censorship of American speech”.The five named were: Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate; Josephine Ballon and Anna-Lena von Hodenberg, leaders of HateAid, a German organization; Clare Melford, who runs the Global Disinformation Index’; and former EU commissioner Breton.The visa bans come after the administration’s National Security Strategy this month said European leaders were censoring free speech and suppressing opposition to immigration policies that it said risk “civilisational erasure” for the continent.Rogers called Breton – who served as the European Commissioner for the internal market from 2019-2024 – “a mastermind” of the DSA.Melford, co-founder of the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), said in a video posted online in 2024 that she co-founded the organisation “to try 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 polarising and divisive and harmful, or whether they want to steer their advertising back towards more quality journalism.”A spokesperson for GDI called the US action “immoral, unlawful, and un-American” and “an authoritarian attack on free speech and an egregious act of government censorship.”Most Europeans are covered by the Visa Waiver Program, which means they don’t necessarily need visas to come into the US. They do, however, need to complete an online application prior to arrival under a system run by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), so it is possible that at least some of these five people have been flagged to DHS, a US official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss details not publicly released.With Reuters, the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse