![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/P01-251225-320.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe US Department of State on Tuesday said that it would deny visas to a former EU commissioner and four others, accusing them of seeking to \u201ccoerce\u201d US social media platforms into censoring viewpoints they oppose.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese radical activists and weaponized NGOs [non-governmental organizations] have advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states \u2014 in each case targeting American speakers and American companies,\u201d the department said in a statement announcing the sanctions.<\/p>\n
The measure targeted Thierry Breton, the former top tech regulator at the European Commission, who often clashed with tech tycoons over their obligations to follow EU rules.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Photo: Reuters<\/p>\n
Breton was described by the department as the \u201cmastermind\u201d of the EU\u2019s Digital Services Act (DSA), a major piece of legislation that imposes content moderation and other standards on major social media platforms operating in Europe.<\/p>\n
French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noel Barrot said on X that his country \u201cstrongly condemns\u201d the visa restrictions, adding that Europe \u201ccannot let the rules governing their digital space be imposed by others upon them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Digital Services Act was democratically adopted in Europe… it has absolutely no extraterritorial reach and in no way affects the United States,\u201d Barrot said.<\/p>\n
The DSA stipulates that major platforms must explain content-moderation decisions, provide transparency for users and ensure researchers can carry out essential work, such as understanding how much children are exposed to dangerous content.<\/p>\n
Breton, who left the European Commission last year, on X slammed the ban as a \u201cwitch hunt,\u201d comparing the situation to the McCarthy era in the US in the 1950s, when officials were chased out of government for alleged ties to communism.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo our American friends: Censorship isn\u2019t where you think it is,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The visa ban also targeted Imran Ahmed of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit that fights online hate, misinformation and disinformation that also fell in the crosshairs of Elon Musk after his takeover of Twitter, later renamed X.<\/p>\n
Also subject to the ban were Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon of HateAid, a German organization that the state department said functions as a trusted flagger for enforcing the DSA.<\/p>\n
Clare Melford, who leads the UK-based Global Disinformation Index, rounded out the group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US Department of State on Tuesday said that it would deny visas to a former EU commissioner…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,5187,17260,17259],"class_list":{"0":"post-652705","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-european","11":"tag-the-taipei-times","12":"tag-17259"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115775527217527107","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}