Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Tuesday that the United States would be sanctioning five foreigners who colluded with the Biden administration and organization within the U.S. to stifle the free speech of Americans. Specifically, these five individuals pressured American tech companies to wage censorship campaigns against U.S. citizens and companies, which Rubio said created “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.”
Rubio called the coordinated effort the “global censorship-industrial complex,” and said the five guilty parties would be barred from entering the United States. Additionally, the State Department can use the Immigration and Nationality Act to expel any of the five if they are currently in the U.S.
For far too long, ideologues in Europe have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose. The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship.
Today, @StateDept will take steps to…
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) December 23, 2025
For far too long, ideologues in Europe have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose. The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship.
Today, @StateDept will take steps to bar leading figures of the global censorship-industrial complex from entering the United States. We stand ready and willing to expand this list if others do not reverse course.
Amongst the five are a former European Union commissioner and leaders of European-based non-governmental organizations that exist to address “digital hate.” That’s codespeak for censorship, of course, but the Trump administration thankfully doesn’t play that game.
One of Rubio’s deputies, Under Secretary of State for Public Policy Sarah Rodgers, followed up the secretary’s announcement with a detailed look at the five offenders and the egregious actions they took to silence Americans.
Today, the United States issued SANCTIONS reinforcing the “red line” I invoked on @GBNEWS. Namely: extraterritorial censorship of Americans.
Today’s sanctions target the censorship-NGO ecosystem.🧵 https://t.co/kaefDo11uh
— Under Secretary of State Sarah B. Rogers (@UnderSecPD) December 23, 2025
It’s a very long thread, so we’ll try to sum it up for you using Rodgers’s exact explanations. Per Under Secretary Rodgers, those who’ve been slapped with sanctions are (emphasis ours):
- Thierry Breton, a mastermind of the Digital Services Act. In August 2024, while serving as European Commissioner for Internal Markets and Digital Services, he published a letter using the DSA to threaten @elonmusk ahead of his livestream interview with President Trump. Before the interview, Breton ominously reminded Musk of @X’s legal obligations and ongoing “formal proceedings” for alleged noncompliance with “illegal content” and “disinformation” requirements under the DSA.
- Imran Ahmed, key collaborator with the Biden Administration’s effort to weaponize the government against U.S. citizens. Ahmed’s group, Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), created the infamous “disinformation dozen” report, which called for platforms to deplatform twelve American “anti-vaxxers”, including now-HHS Secretary @SecKennedy. Leaked documents from CCDH show the organization listed “kill Musk’s Twitter” and “trigger EU and UK regulatory action” as priorities. The organization supports the UK’s Online Safety Act and EU’s Digital Services Act to expand censorship in Europe and around the world.
- Clare Melford. She leads Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a UK-based organization that monitors websites for “hate speech” and “disinformation”. If you question Canadian blood libels about residential schools, you’re engaging in “hate speech” according to Melford and GDI. This NGO used @StateDept taxpayer money to exhort censorship and blacklisting of American speech and press. They also joined the deleterious EU Code of Practice on Disinformation.
- Anna-Lena von Hodenberg, the leader and founder of HateAid, a German organization founded after the 2017 German federal elections to counter conservative groups. HateAid is an official “trusted flagger” (a censor) under the EU’s anti-speech Digital Services Act (DSA) and routinely demands access to propriety social media platform data to help it censor more. Hodenberg cited threat of “disinformation” from “right-wing extremists” online in upcoming U.S. and EU elections when circulating a petition for the DSA to become more strongly enforced to allow data access for “researchers”.
- Josephine Ballon, co-leader of HateAid, who flags disfavored speech throughout Europe under the Digital Services Act. In addition to her running an official “trusted flagger” body under the DSA, she serves on Germany’s Advisory Council of the Digital Services Coordinator (DSC), which directly advises Germany’s DSC on the application and enforcement of the DSA. In February 2025, Ballon spoke before an American audience in a notable 60 Minutes interview, outlining her position on censorship succinctly: “Free speech needs boundaries.” In October 2024, she vowed to stop the “emotionalization of debates” by “regulating platforms”.
Under the Visa Waiver Program, most Europeans don’t need a visa to enter the United States, but do need to complete an online application that is reviewed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Meaning, it’s very possible that DHS has already flagged the five and taken any necessary actions against them.
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This isn’t the first time the Trump administration has taken decisive action against foreign agents who try to meddle in the affairs of the United States. Back in July, Rubio announced sanctions against Francesca Paola Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories, for her sustained “campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel.”
The days of expecting the US to tolerate the interference of Europeans who think they’re our overlords are over and done with. Rubio’s willingness to call them out and punish them sends an unmistakable message: foreign meddling, especially when it interferes with the First Amendment, will not be tolerated, and those who try will find the doors to the United States firmly shut to them.
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