We Americans are a stubborn bunch. We don’t like anyone pushing us around. We especially don’t like it when faraway potentates try to pass laws binding us without our consent. Next year we’re celebrating the 250th anniversary of our response to he last time someone tried.
The continentals, including even the countrymen of Lafayette, just don’t get us. They don’t understand why we made this the First Amendment to our Constitution in 1787:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
No one tells an American what he can or can’t say. So when a bunch of bureaucrats from today's chancelleries of Europe (read: NGOs) decided they could indeed impose restrictions on tech platforms, chilling speech and preventing American viewpoints, the best secretary of state since Thomas Jefferson occupied the office took to X to announce no, this wasn’t happening. Secretary Marco Rubio placed visa restrictions on five people whom he called “agents of 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.
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) December 23, 2025
Today, @StateDept will take steps to…
The names of the agencies the five represent are Orwellian:
- Centre for Countering Digital Hate (Imran Ahmed, England)
- HateAid (Josephine Ballon and Anna-Lena von Hodenberg, both from Germany)
- Global Disinformation Index (Clare Melford, England)
Topping off the list is a former European Union commissioner, Thierry Breton, from France. General Lafayette, who came to the aid of the colonies in our Revolution, would not recognize what has happened to his home country.
Those organizations listed above have benign-sounding goals. HateAid labels itself a “non-profile organization that promotes human rights in digital space.” The Centre for Countering Digital Hate states, “we work together to make the Internet safer through research, public campaigns and policy advocacy. The Global Disinformation Index promotes itself as providing “independent, neutral and transparent data and intelligence to advise policymakers” on combating “disinformation.” The Brussels-based EU has attempted to control speech on the internet through the Digital Services Act (DSA) since its passage in 2022.
In Rubio’s announcement of the bans, he accused these activists and NGO officials of “organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints they oppose.” No longer can these five freely travel to our country, if they will not respect the rights of our citizens.
The attack on free speech has had stifling effects on Europe, known as the cradle of Western Civilization, and especially England, once regarded in our nation as our “mother country.” Police arrested Livia Tossici-Bolt for praying silently outside a clinic in England. Muslim onlookers harass ministers in England when they preach. Globalists worldwide seek to curb free speech.
It takes a president and executive staff with solid nerves and firm convictions to stand up to these elite, influential Europeans. Both President Donald Trump and Rubio have that resolve. No longer are we looking to Europe for any approval. In previous administrations, our executive branch wanted approval from those who don’t live here or understand our concerns. No more; now we have an administration that is putting Americans' free speech rights at the front of its agenda.
Today, the United States issued SANCTIONS reinforcing the "red line" I invoked on @GBNEWS. Namely: extraterritorial censorship of Americans.
— Under Secretary of State Sarah B. Rogers (@UnderSecPD) December 23, 2025
Today's sanctions target the censorship-NGO ecosystem.🧵 https://t.co/kaefDo11uh
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