The unelected European Commission and French President Emmanuel Macron expressed indignation and vowed retaliation on Wednesday over the Trump administration’s sanctions on “leading figures of the global censorship-industrial complex”, including former EU censorship tsar Thierry Breton.
On Tuesday evening, the U.S. State Department said that it would sanction five Europeans and bar them from travelling to the United States for their role in censoring Americans and American firms.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement: “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.”
Among those listed in the first round of sanctions was British citizen Imran Ahmed, the founder and CEO of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), which has waged Sleeping Giants-style censorship campaigns against American news outlets, including Breitbart News. The State Department also listed Global Disinformation Index (GDI) chief Clare Melford, Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon of Germany’s HateAid, and former EU censorship tsar Thierry Breton.
U.S. Undersecretary of State Sarah B. Rogers described Breton as the “mastermind” behind the European Union’s Digital Services Act, which demands that social media firms censor so-called “hate speech” or “disinformation” or face fines of up to six per cent of their global revenue or even a suspension from being able to operate within the 27-nation bloc.
Breton infamously intervened during the 2024 U.S. presidential election, demanding that X boss Elon Musk abide by the EU’s speech restrictions during a live interview with then-candidate Donald Trump. The French politician said that the interview must include “mitigation measures” to prevent the “amplification of harmful content” that may “generate detrimental effects on civic discourse and public security” in the EU.
While Breton resigned months later over a dispute with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, the censorship rules he spearheaded remain a major force in punishing American companies, most recently fining X €120 million earlier this month for alleged violations of transparency regulations.
Responding to his travel ban from the United States, the former French finance minister suggested that he was the victim of a McCarthyite “witch hunt”. Breton, who was never elected to any role within the EU, went on to boast that 90 per cent of the European Parliament voted in favour of the Digital Services Act. Yet, like all EU-level legislation, it was drafted by unelected Eurocrats at the European Commission.
The Commission said that it “strongly condemns” the move by the United States to ban Breton from entering the country, and that “if needed, we will respond swiftly and decisively to defend our regulatory autonomy against unjustified measures.”
The unelected executive arm of the EU went on to claim that “freedom of expression is a fundamental right in Europe and a shared core value with the United States across the democratic world.”
“The EU is an open, rules-based single market, with the sovereign right to regulate economic activity in line with our democratic values and international commitments. Our digital rules ensure a safe, fair, and level playing field for all companies, applied fairly and without discrimination.”
French President Emmanuel Macron also condemned the move, claiming that the sanctions amounted to “intimidation and coercion aimed at undermining European digital sovereignty.”
Despite the Digital Services Act already having been used to fine American companies, Macron asserted that the censorship restrictions only “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,” adding that the “rules governing the European Union’s digital space are not meant to be determined outside Europe.”
“Together with the European Commission and our European partners, we will continue to defend our digital sovereignty and our regulatory autonomy,” Macron vowed.
On the other hand, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau suggested that the White House go further, arguing that the security Americans provide to Europeans through the NATO military alliance should be dependent on the EU ending its censorship drive.
“If the sovereign nations of Europe allow the EU to attack fundamental freedoms in the US, those same nations cannot expect the US to defend fundamental freedoms in Europe,” he said.
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