Trump escalates tensions with the EU by sanctioning officials who fight online hate speech

The Trump administration’s pressure on the European Union over tech regulations for U.S. platforms operating in Europe has reached an unprecedented level. On Tuesday night, Washington imposed sanctions on several European figures involved in content moderation on social media and the fight against hate speech on platforms like Elon Musk’s X or Facebook.

The U.S. State Department accused those sanctioned — including former European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton, responsible in the last term for the Digital Services Act — of “extraterritorial censorship of Americans.” The individuals targeted are now barred from entering U.S. territory, and if they are already in the country, they may face deportation.

This unprecedented move comes after the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy, published 10 days earlier, claimed that European leaders censor free speech and suppress opposition to migration policies. It adds to other U.S. efforts against European regulations. The Trump administration claims it is fighting the “censorship-NGO ecosystem” and the “global censorship-industrial complex.”

“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,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter).

The U.S. has warned it may broaden the sanctions to include more Europeans unless positions change.

“Foreign nations seeking to impose their anti-freedom policies to censor American voices and force American platforms to regulate or silence our free speech is a gross violation of our sovereignty that must be answered with accountability,” Tulsi Gabbard, head of the U.S. National Intelligence Department, posted on X.

Breton responded on X as well, questioning whether the McCarthy-era witch hunts have returned — a reference to the Cold War-era persecution led by U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, which targeted hundreds of people suspected of communist sympathies without evidence. The former European Commissioner noted that the Digital Services Act was democratically approved by the European Parliament and all 27 EU member states. “To our American friends: Censorship isn’t where you think it is,” he wrote.

Breton tops the list of five sanctioned individuals. According to Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, Sara B. Rogers, he is “the mastermind” behind the Digital Services Act. The regulation must be followed by major digital platforms operating in Europe, such as X, Instagram, TikTok, and large commercial intermediaries like Amazon or AliExpress. The regulation, which came into force in summer 2023, aims to better protect consumers and their fundamental online rights, combat illegal content such as child abuse material, cyberbullying, and hate speech, while promoting transparency and ensuring a “single, uniform market” across the EU.

The European Commission implemented the regulation earlier this month with a €120 million ($141.6 million) fine against X, Elon Musk’s social media platform. Musk, the world’s richest man and part of Donald Trump’s ecosystem, was penalized for failing to comply with European rules on advertising transparency, access to data for researchers, and the design of its paid verification system — the famous blue check that appears on certain X accounts for paying users.

The Trump administration has declared war on these regulations, arguing that they undermine free speech and take a financial toll on U.S. tech companies, which are now closely aligned with the White House. Washington had previously pressured the European Commission to relax its digital rules in exchange for trade concessions in steel and aluminum — a clear case of blackmail during a period of escalating tariffs. Since the fine on X, Washington and Musk have intensified their rhetoric against the EU. The tech magnate has even falsely claimed that the penalty resulted from his refusal to censor content.

Among those targeted by the Trump administration — using immigration and nationality law rather than formal sanctions — are prominent researchers of online hate speech and NGO activists combating disinformation. One of them, Imran Ahmed, is CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, who Musk sued in 2023 (the case was dismissed) after the NGO documented a rise in hate speech on X following the platform’s acquisition.

Also sanctioned were Josephine Ballon and Anna-Lena von Hodenberg, leaders of German NGO HateAid, which monitors far-right hate speech online, and Clare Melford of the U.K.-based Global Disinformation Index. In a statement, the organization described the sanctions as “an authoritarian attack on free speech and an egregious act of government censorship,” accusing the Trump administration of using its power to “intimidate, censor, and silence voices they disagree with.”

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