“The US State Department has imposed visa restrictions against former European Commissioner Thierry Breton and heads of organizations engaged in the fight against disinformation. Donald Trump’s administration has accused them of censoring American views.”, — write: www.pravda.com.ua
Thierry Breton. Photo: Getty Images Source: CNN, Reuters
Details: On Tuesday, the US State Department sharply increased its opposition to European regulations that regulate the activities of technological giants in the EU. Five people, whose activities, according to Washington, threaten the freedom of speech and the interests of Trump’s allies, in particular billionaire Elon Musk, came under the restrictions.
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In particular, Thierry Breton – a former European Commissioner who was one of the key initiators of the Digital Services Act (DSA), which obliges large technology companies to combat hate speech and disinformation – was sanctioned.
In addition to him, the heads of organizations investigating dangerous content on the Internet were sanctioned. Among them are Director General of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) Imran Ahmed, co-founder of the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) Claire Melford, as well as two employees of the German non-profit organization HateAid – Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon.
The US administration believes that they coordinated efforts to limit the income of American companies and suppress views that contradict their ideology. According to State Department representatives, European leaders are using the fight against disinformation as a tool to persecute opponents of immigration policy.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasized that the entry of these persons to the US may have negative consequences for the country’s foreign policy. The US Department of Homeland Security is also considering deporting individuals associated with these organizations.
US Deputy Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers wrote in the X social network that the sanctions against Ahmed are partly related to the report “Disinformation Dozen” for 2022, which featured current US Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as one of the main distributors of anti-vaccination content.
“These radical activists and armed civil society organizations have contributed to increased foreign censorship, in each case targeting American speakers and American companies. We have taken steps to impose visa restrictions on agents of the global censorship industrial complex,” – stated Rubio.
“Is this the same McCarthy-era ‘witch hunt’ again? To our American friends: ‘censorship is not where you think'” – reacted Breton on the US decision.
A representative of the Global Disinformation Index called Washington’s actions an “authoritarian attack.”
“The Trump administration is once again using the full influence of the federal government to intimidate, censor, and silence voices it disagrees with. Their actions are immoral, illegal, and un-American,” a GDI spokesperson said in a statement to CNN.
Prehistory:
- US Vice President JD Vance criticized European approaches during a speech at the Munich Security Conference. In his opinion, “it’s more like old entrenched interests that hide behind ugly Soviet-era words like ‘disinformation’ and that just don’t like the idea of an alternative point of view.”
- On July 25, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee published a report in which the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) recognized as a “threat of foreign censorship”. The report called the law a “comprehensive digital censorship law” that threatens the freedom of speech of American citizens.
- In early December, the European Commission fined social network X, owned by American billionaire Elon Musk, for 120 million euros for violating EU rules on online content.