The State Department announced Tuesday it was barring five Europeans it accused of leading efforts to pressure US tech firms to censor or suppress American viewpoints. The Europeans, characterized by Secretary of State Marco Rubio as "radical" activists and "weaponized" nongovernmental organizations, fell afoul of a new visa policy announced in May to restrict the entry of foreigners deemed responsible for censorship of protected speech in the US, the AP reports.
- "For far too long, ideologues in Europe have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose," Rubio said in a post on X. "The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship." He said the State Department will "take steps to bar leading figures of the global censorship-industrial complex from entering the United States."