Trump admin SANCTIONS 5 foreign far-left 'disinformation' activists behind Biden-era censorship

The State Department on Tuesday announced that it is barring five foreign "radical activists" who have "led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints they oppose." 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced, "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."

A press release from Rubio stated that the five "radical activists and weaponized NGOs have advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states—in each case targeting American speakers and American companies. As such, I have determined that their entry, presence, or activities in the United States have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States."

The Department has taken steps to impose visa restrictions on "agents of the global censorship-industrial complex who, as a result, will be generally barred from entering the United States."

"President Trump has been clear that his America First foreign policy rejects violations of American sovereignty. Extraterritorial overreach by foreign censors targeting American speech is no exception. The State Department stands ready and willing to expand today’s list if other foreign actors do not reverse course."

Per Under Secretary of State Sarah B Rogers, the five people sanctioned are former European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services Thierry Breton, CEO of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate Imran Ahmed, Clare Melford, the leader of the Global Disinformation Index, and Josephine Ballon and Anna-Lena von Hodenberg, who both lead the German organization HateAid.

In regard to Breton, Rogers noted a letter he sent to X owner Elon Musk in 2024 ahead of a livestreamed interview he had with President Donald Trump while he was on the campaign trail. Breton threatened in the letter to "make full use of our toolbox" if his platform X would not comply with the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA) "to protect EU citizens from serious harm." 

Rogers wrote that Ahmed’s Center for Countering Digital Hate "created the infamous 'disinformation dozen’ report, which called for platforms to deplatform twelve American 'anti-vaxxers', including now-HHS Secretary [Robert F Kennedy Jr]. 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." Rogers said that Ahmed was a "key collaborator with the Biden Administration’s effort to weaponize the government against US citizens."

Melford "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 State Department taxpayer money to exhort censorship and blacklisting of American speech and press. They also joined the deleterious EU Code of Practice on Disinformation," Rogers wrote.

Von Hodenberg’s group, hateAid, which was founded in the wake of the 2017 German federal elections, is a "trusted flagger" under the EU’s Digital Services Act 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 US and EU elections when circulating a petition for the DSA to become more strongly enforced to allow data access for 'researchers.’"

Ballon, who co-leads HateAid, also serves on Germany’s Advisory Council of the Digital Services Coordinator, which advises the DSC on the application and enforcement of the DSA in the country. In a 60 Minutes interview in Februrary, Ballon said "free speech needs boundaries," and vowed in October 2024 to stop the "emotionalization of debates" by "regulating platforms."

NewsNation host Katie Pavlich wrote that when she was at Townhall, "we fought this overseas censorship regime for *years*. Foreign 'fact checkers' did everything could to prevent us from reporting on major political and policy issues (specifically globalist clauses like 'climate change' and COVID narratives) while also costing enormous amounts in revenue in an attempt to put us out of business. The Biden administration allowed them to keep doing it because they agreed with the government censorship industrial complex - which they also heavily engaged in."

She added, "Pleased to see some justice being served and consequences for this outrageous, tyrannical behavior."