The US State Department has issued a strong statement condemning Europe’s and other nations’ efforts to regulate digital platforms.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the US would impose visa restrictions on “foreign nationals responsible for censoring protected expression in the United States.” He emphasized that it is “unacceptable for foreign officials to issue or threaten arrest warrants against U.S. citizens or residents for their social media activity on American platforms while they are physically in the U.S.” Additionally, he criticized foreign demands for American tech platforms to implement global content moderation policies or to engage in censorship that oversteps their authority into the United States.
While the specifics of the policy enforcement remain unclear, it appears to target the European Digital Services Act (DSA), which took effect in 2023 and aims to enhance online platform safety by setting obligations for major platforms regarding the removal of illegal content and transparency in content moderation. Although not explicitly stated in the visa restriction announcement, the Trump administration has previously criticized the DSA, including comments made earlier this year by Vice President JD Vance.
It is “unacceptable for foreign officials to demand that American tech platforms adopt global content moderation policies.”
The State Department’s official Substack features an article by Samuel Samson, a senior advisor for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, who criticizes the DSA as a mechanism that “silences dissenting voices through Orwellian content moderation.” He notes that “independent regulators now oversee social media companies, including significant American platforms like X, threatening steep fines for failing to comply with their stringent speech regulations.”
Rubio concluded the announcement by stating, “We will not tolerate infringements on American sovereignty, especially when they threaten our fundamental right to free speech.”
