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.
Hellbound and Down 