Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. had nothing but love for Secretary of State Marco Rubio after he and the State Department escalated the battle for free speech by slapping a ban on several Europeans who are leading campaigns to limit speech through campaigns against so-called “hate” and “misinformation” on social media. The five individuals are not allowed to enter the United States.
“Once again, the United States is the mecca for freedom of speech!” Kennedy said in response to the State Department’s announcement concerning the bans. The prohibitions were placed on French former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton, Center for Countering Digital Hate CEO Imran Ahmed, Global Disinformation Index CEO Clare Melford, and HateAid leaders Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon.
Breton is responsible for putting together the European Union’s Digital Services Act, with the goal of supposedly making the internet a safer place by forcing online platforms to confront and disable hate speech and misinformation. However, the U.S. says the law unfairly targets American tech companies and citizens who use their platforms.
According to The Hill, Rubio leveled accusations against the five Europeans of spearheading “organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose.” The secretary of state announced the visa bans in a post on X, saying, “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,” Rubio’s post continued. The policy banning the five individuals places restrictions on visas for any foreign nationals who the Trump administration says are censoring citizens.
Breton, as one could imagine, was unhappy with the ban, taking to X to ask if “McCarthy’s witch hunt” was back. “To our American friends: ‘Censorship isn’t where you think it is,’” his post said. Former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) also ripped the ban while pointing out that the Center for Countering Digital Hate “flags content that is antisemitic or harmful to children.”
“Just to be clear — Marco Rubio is banning the leaders of an organization called the Center for Countering Digital Hate for the ‘crime’ of publishing a top-12 list of anti-vaxxers online,” Malinowski wrote in his post. French President Emmanuel Macron also came out against the ban, slamming the U.S. for “intimidation and coercion” that undermines the sovereignty of Europe.
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“The European Union’s digital regulations were adopted following a democratic and sovereign process by the European Parliament and the Council,” Macron went on to say in a post on X. “They apply within Europe to ensure fair competition among platforms, without targeting any third country, and to ensure that what is illegal offline is also illegal online. The rules governing the European Union’s digital space are not meant to be determined outside Europe.” Macron then promised that he would partner with the European Commission and several other leaders from Europe to “defend our digital sovereignty and our regulatory autonomy.”