WASHINGTON, Dec. 24 (Xinhua) -- U.S. officials on Tuesday issued visa restrictions on five individuals from the EU and Britain over the claim that they are involved in content censorship on U.S. social media platforms, according to a statement released by the U.S. State Department.
The visa restrictions follow the administration's National Security Strategy released earlier this month, which accused European leaders of restricting free speech.
U.S. diplomats have rallied opposition to the EU's Digital Services Act, a landmark regulation aimed at addressing hate speech, misinformation, and disinformation. Washington has argued that the legislation curbs free expression and imposes greater compliance burdens on U.S. technology firms.
"The State Department is taking decisive action against five individuals who have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints they oppose," said U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the statement without mentioning specific names.
Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers later revealed the five names on X, including former European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton, whom she claimed was "a mastermind of the Digital Services Act."
The visa restrictions also apply to Imran Ahmed, a British citizen and chief executive of the U.S.-based Center for Countering Digital Hate; Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon from the German non-profit organization HateAid; and Clare Melford, a co-founder of the Global Disinformation Index, according to Rogers.
Hodenberg and Ballon said in a statement that the visa bans were aimed at obstructing the enforcement of European law on U.S. companies operating in Europe, adding that they would not be intimidated by what they described as the use of "censorship" accusations, while a spokesperson for the Global Disinformation Index called the U.S. move immoral and unlawful, characterizing it as an authoritarian act that undermines free speech and amounts to government censorship, according to media reports. ■