US denies visa for 5 Europeans over Social Media Rules
25th Dec. 2025
The United States will deny visas to five European individuals. The list includes a former European Union commissioner, Thierry Breton. State Department accused them of attempting to pressure American social media companies into suppressing viewpoints they oppose. According to the US government, the move targets what it describes as foreign efforts to influence online speech in the US.
According to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the impacted individuals were part of a larger effort to extend censorship across national boundaries, and such acts infringed upon American sovereignty. “These radical activists and weaponized NGOs have advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states, in each case targeting American speakers and American companies,” Rubio said in a statement.
Main Targets are Former EU regulator and NGOs
Among the list, Thierry Breton, the former EU commissioner is responsible for digital policy and a key architect of the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA). The State Department described him as the “mastermind” behind the law, which requires social media firms to remove illegal content and curb harmful material.
However, the DSA has drawn strong criticism from US conservatives. They argue that it could be used to silence right-wing opinions online. Brussels has consistently rejected those claims and insisted that the law protects users while upholding free expression. At the same time, Breton responded sharply to the visa ban. Posting on X, he wrote: “To our American friends: Censorship isn’t where you think it is,” and warned of what he called a “witch hunt”.
The former commissioner has previously clashed with Elon Musk, over compliance with EU digital rules. Recently, the European Commission fined X €120m ($141.5m) for its blue tick system. They say that it was “deceptive” because users were not being meaningfully verified. In response, X blocked the Commission from advertising on the platform.
The game of accusations and retaliation over denial of US Visa
Other people who are facing visa restrictions are Clare Melford, head of the UK-based Global Disinformation Index (GDI), and Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). US undersecretary of state Sarah B Rogers accused the organizations of using American taxpayer money to encourage censorship and blacklisting of US speech.
A GDI spokesperson rejected the claims. He called the sanctions “an authoritarian attack on free speech and an egregious act of government censorship”. The group added that “the Trump Administration is, once again, using the full weight of the federal government to intimidate, censor, and silence voices they disagree with”.
Two German digital rights advocates, Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon of HateAid, were also included. They described the move as “an act of repression by a government that is increasingly disregarding the rule of law”.
Rubio defended the decision, saying visa restrictions would apply to “agents of the global censorship-industrial complex”. He added that President Trump’s “America First” approach rejects what he called “extraterritorial overreach by foreign censors targeting American speech”.
Web Resources on the US denies visa for 5 Europeans
1. BBC.com: US denies visas to ex-EU commissioner and others over social media rules
2. AlJazeera.com: US bars five Europeans over alleged efforts to ‘censor American viewpoints’
3. DW.com: US bans ex-EU commissioner, others over social media rules