U.S. bars former EU commissioner, 4 others from entering country
Former EU Commissioner for the Internal Marker Thierry Breton was the chief target of a U.S. travel ban imposed by Washington on European activists campaigning for online safety. File photo by Olivier Hoslet/EPA-EFE
Dec. 24 (UPI) — The United States imposed travel bans on former European Union technology commissioner Thierry Breton and four other campaigners against online hate and disinformation, alleging they had forced U.S. social media platforms to limit Americans’ first amendment rights.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement Tuesday that the five had “led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize and suppress” the views of Americans with whom they disagreed.
“These radical activists and weaponized NGOs have advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states — in each case targeting American speakers and American companies,” added Rubio who described the five as “agents of the global censorship-industrial complex.”
Beton was singled out by U.S. Under Secretary of State Sarah Rogers as the “mastermind” of European laws that require social media that operate in the 27-country bloc to adhere to content moderation and other standards to protect users, and children in particular, from harm.
That affects the big U.S. tech players, including Google and Meta, by requiring stricter monitoring of content or face fines up to 1% of global annual turnover.
Rogers named the others banned from entering the United States as Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon of Berlin-based non-profit HateAid, Clare Melford, co-founder of the London-headquartered Global Disinformation Index, and Briton, Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate.
Breton, who served as the commissioner for the EU’s internal market from 2019 to 2024, likened the move to McCarthyism in the late 1940s and early 1950s and pointed out that the Digital Services Act was voted into law by 90% of MEPs.
“To our American friends: ‘Censorship isn’t where you think it is,” he said.
Brussels condemned the visa bans, saying Wednesday that freedom of expression was a core value that Europe shared in common with United States, but that the EU had sovereignty in regulating economic activity and that its digital laws were fairly applied without prejudice.
The visa bans also came under strong criticism from French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, who said that safeguards on Europe’s digital space, which had been adopted by democratic means in Europe, could not be dictated from the outside.
He insisted the legislation contained no extraterritorial provisions and therefore had no impact on the United States.
The dispute dates back to an August 2024 warning Breton issued to Elon Musk that an interview with then presidential candidate Donald Trump that he planned to stream on his X platform must not breach the Digital Services Act.
According to Rogers, Breton’s letter contained a sinister recap of X’s legal duties under the DSA and referenced ‘formal proceedings’ for alleged ‘illegal content’ and ‘disinformation.'”