US Sanctions Former EU Official, Others in New Swipe at Europe

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-23/us-sanctions-former-eu-official-others-in-new-swipe-at-europe?embedded-checkout=true

by Crossstoney

34 comments

  1. “ The Trump administration on Tuesday imposed visa sanctions on former European Union Commissioner Thierry Breton and four other people for trying to make American tech companies police political speech on their platforms.

    “For far too long, ideologues in Europe have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a post on the X social media platform. “The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship.”

    Rubio added that US officials “stand ready and willing to expand this list if others do not reverse course.”

    Besides Breton, the State Department also targeted activists and non-profits focused on digital hate speech and countering extremism. That includes Imran Ahmed of the Center for Countering Digital Hate and the UK-based Global Disinformation Index’s Clare Melford, as well as Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon of Germany’s HateAid, which flags far-right hate speech online. 

    The Global Disinformation Index in a statement called the sanctions “an authoritarian attack on free speech and an egregious act of government censorship,” accusing the Trump administration of using its power to “intimidate, censor, and silence voices they disagree with.” – Bloomberg

  2. Look it’s reasonable to be concerned about the US right now, but I think we can all agree that Europe should not be embracing censorship, and it makes me SO happy to see some comeuppance for Thierry Breton!

  3. I would take this as a sign that I did something right. Breton should form a pro-EU party and use this as a kick-start for his campaign.

  5. dark times. pure machiavellian move. accuse others of what you plan to do yourself. i hope our leaders in EU can see the writing on the wall.

  7. (1) This is not USA, retiring from global stage. But USA looking to be the one & only bully on the global stage. (2) Well mr. Breton was EC member. EC is the executive branch if EU. Parliament is controlling EC, EU Council, etc. So for bad or worse, EU is an imperfect union, but it is not a individual who decides and imposes a common policy upon states and actors. (3) Mega donors for the MAGA movement are Meta, X, others. The technofeudalism (Varoufakis named it) is mad on DRA & related issues. (4) The social media platforms make money from bait, Earth is flat, man on moon never happened, vaccines are bad, plus other. A.s.f.

  9. Europe should start by immediately classifying the Heritage Foundation as a criminal organization. And then ban Crapbook and Twatter.

  10. That Trump guy certainly know how to make former friends make new alliances with other, more sane countries instead.

  11. Meanwhile Con Artist Trump operates a golf club in Scotland to maximizes losses to not pay any tax.

  12. Declare the heritage foundation a foreign terrorist group!

  13. So now they are openly in war and persecuting our politician ? Maybe now, our politician would be incentivized enough to detach from the USA and really act to be more independent.

  14. I am getting a bit worried if EU doesn’t reciprocate somehow. I really hope something will be done, both to penalize this behavior and to protect people in the future from this abusive acts.

    Even if, in this case, it seems they are only Visa sanctions? Because honestly, I don’t think that is a big pain for most people. 🙂

  16. That needs an answer. Transatlantic cocksuckers need to get ousted.

  22. The EU cannot let this stand. They’re targeting former officials. That’s a serious political provocation that must be met with action.

  23. Couldn’t these internet/ speech monitoring organizations just up a American branch/ partner group to avoid these ridiculous sanctions.

  24. Alot of their money is in the faang companies and weapons. We have data centers being opened left and right, where USA is freeloading on our electricity.

    Its time to start looking closer at those spy centers being built everywhere here by the faang companies and others.

  25. Europeans gotta realize that they are not in a position of power right at this moment. There is no option to strike back. If Europe gets its shit together and hussles for the next decade, they might manage to build up enough military might and economic independence to be a big player again. But at this moment Europe is weak, dependent and incapable.

  26. The US lifts sanctions from russian and russia affiliated companies while simultaneously sanctioning EU officials. Makes sense.

  27. End the Taxhaven in Ireland for all these tech bro’s now!

  28. Are they just rehashing the talking points of the bad guys they want to win.

    That and Musk amethamine-ketamin frenzies, obviously.

    Anyway, it’s pretty clear they want to “”flood the zone”” using people that aren’t Trump. He is quite ill and can’t keep splurging amphetanines, hence the sleepiness.

    We shall wait until the old guard of the Republican Party wakes up to pull the chair. It’s getting close. The files are out for a reason.

  29. Guys, you can complain about EU being slow as fuck when they need to take a decision. But when they take a decision it stays for long and most of times is a good one.

    I would never trade this with the chaos and dissolution of parliament US faces.

    We are slow, we are imperfect, but it’s the best system ever invented so far.

    We have so many leaders and so diverse, we are lucky to have Soros to rule them all. 😂

  32. Time for EU leaders to stop playing nice with these guys and punch them back ten times harder.

    They are insanely unhinged and disrespects us constantly. Time for playing nice is over, put them in their place.

  33. I love how all the hate for America is finally coming out and the EU isn’t hiding it anymore, believe us it is mutual so let’s get this over with. Bye Feliciano!

  34. As much as I dislike the United States think about what’s happening here:

    * EU sanctions US platforms that don’t censor free speech,

    * US sanctions EU for sanctioning US platforms that don’t censor free speech, in order to protect the US platforms.

    Yes, the US is a duplicitous lying circus empire but in this case alone it’s mere reciprocity and not an unwarranted one.

    I mean just look at this:

    >The Global Disinformation Index in a statement called the sanctions ***“an authoritarian attack on free speech and an egregious act of government censorship,”***

    That’s ***literally*** what EU is doing, attack on free speech and censorship.

    >accusing the Trump administration of using its power to ***“intimidate, censor, and silence voices they disagree with.”*** – Bloomberg

    Literally what the EU does by censoring platforms.

    You could just swap “Trump administration” with “EU” and that sentence still makes sense.

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