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A “ban” instead of diplomacy. Washington puts Thierry Breton and four other Europeans on the unwanted list and he does it in public, linking their names to an alleged «global complex of industrial censorship». It is the final scene of a story that has become, step by step, a tug of war between allies.
What happened
On December 23, 2025, The US State Department announced that it had imposed visa restrictions on five people which, according to the USA, would have led or fueled an alleged “global industrial censorship complex”. In essence, a network of public decision makers and civic organizations accused of putting pressure on American platforms and companies to limit content and opinions protected by the First Amendment.
They appear in the group Thierry Bretonformer European Commissioner for the Internal Market, and four figures linked to the fight against hate and disinformation: Imran Ahmed (Centre for Countering Digital Hate), Josephine Ballon e Anna-Lena von Hodenberg (Hate Aid), Clare Melford (Global Disinformation Index).
The DSA and the “spillover” effect perceived in Washington
Friction comes from the heart of Digital Services Act (DSA), the European Union (EU) law which from 2024 requires online platforms – especially the largest – stricter rules on moderation and accountability: transparency obligations on content and advertising, risk assessment and management, mitigation of illegal phenomena and “systemic risks”, independent audits and supervisory and sanctioning powers entrusted mostly to the European Commission. If for Brussels it is a package of guarantees and responsibilities for a safer digital market, for a part of the American establishment (particularly conservative) it is a framework which, even if formally limited to the EU, leads global platforms to standardize everywhere to reduce costs and legal riskswith the result of effectively influencing the US “public square”.
August-September 2024: the clash over
A crucial turning point is the summer of 2024, when Breton becomes, in the United States, the recognizable face of the European “hard line” on platforms. The House Judiciary Committee, led by Jim Jordanopens direct political pressure on the Frenchman by accusing the Commission of threatening X (therefore an American company) and of wanting to use European law to push content moderation which would also end up affecting political discourse in the United States. The letter of August 15, 2024 and the subsequent statement/letter in September formalize the rhetorical framework: Dsa equals regulation of content, regulation of content equals risk of censorship, risk of censorship equals problem of American constitutional freedom.
