U.S. bars visas for ex-EU tech regulator Thierry Breton, four NGO leaders, escalating rift over online speech rules
The U.S. State Department said it will deny visas to former European Union commissioner Thierry Breton and four prominent figures in the digital-speech arena, accusing them of trying to “coerce” American social media platforms into censoring viewpoints they oppose.
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“These radical activists and weaponised NGOs have advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states — in each case targeting American speakers and American companies,” the department said in a statement announcing the sanctions.
The move targets Breton, the former top tech regulator at the European Commission who left the post in 2024 and frequently clashed with tech executives including Elon Musk over European content rules. The State Department called him the “mastermind” of the EU’s Digital Services Act, or DSA, a sweeping law that imposes standards on major platforms operating in Europe, including content-moderation transparency and researcher access.
The visa ban also covers Imran Ahmed of the Center for Countering Digital Hate; Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon of HateAid, which the State Department said functions as a trusted flagger for enforcing the DSA; and Clare Melford of the UK-based Global Disinformation Index.
The DSA has become a rallying point for U.S. conservatives who argue the law amounts to censorship of right-leaning speech in Europe and beyond — a charge the EU rejects. “The Digital Services Act (DSA) was democratically adopted in Europe … it has absolutely no extraterritorial reach and in no way affects the United States,” Barrot said.
Breton criticized the U.S. action as a “witch hunt” in a post on X, comparing the move to the McCarthy era in the United States. “To our American friends: Censorship isn’t where you think it is,” he wrote.
Washington has intensified its criticism of EU tech regulation after Brussels fined Musk’s X earlier this month for violating DSA rules on advertising transparency and user verification practices. Last week, the U.S. government signaled that key European businesses could be targeted in response, listing Accenture, DHL, Mistral, Siemens and Spotify among others.
The widening dispute has extended to Britain. The administration is also challenging the UK’s Online Safety Act, the British counterpart to the DSA that seeks to impose content-moderation requirements on large platforms. The White House last week suspended implementation of a tech cooperation deal with the UK, citing opposition to the country’s tech rules.
“President Trump has been clear that his America First foreign policy rejects violations of American sovereignty,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement. “Extraterritorial overreach by foreign censors targeting American speech is no exception.”
The sanctions mark a sharp escalation in transatlantic tensions over who sets the guardrails for online speech, and where those rules apply. With visa bans now layered atop regulatory fines and suspended cooperation, the dispute threatens to complicate business for U.S. and European platforms and advertisers as both sides harden their approaches to platform governance and content moderation.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
