Europe pushes back at Trump's 'authoritarian' sanctions on anti-disinformation figures

The State Department sanctioned Thierry Breton, Imran Ahmed, Clare Melford, Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon for "egregious acts" of censorship.

LONDON — European allies reacted with outrage Wednesday after the Trump administration sanctioned online safety campaigners accused of censoring “American viewpoints.”

The five people Secretary of State Marco Rubio banned from entering the United States include a former top European Union official and four high-profile activists against hate speech and disinformation on social media.

Rubio accused the five sanctioned figures of leading “organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints they oppose.”

These “radical activists and weaponized NGOs have advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states,” he added, using the acronym to refer to nongovernmental organizations. “The Trump administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship.”

It marks a dramatic escalation of Washington’s war on what it sees as censorship from across the Atlantic. Europe has previously seen Vice President JD Vance berate its leaders over perceived failures on free speech.