European governments have imposed tyrannical censorship on their own citizens. Now, they're trying to impose it on…

European governments have imposed tyrannical censorship on their own citizens. Now, they're trying to impose it on America. Today, I'm asking the Trump Administration to sanction foreign actors—in the European Union and elsewhere—who aid and abet this censorship regime. 🧵

Over the past decade, we've seen alarming attacks on basic liberties across the West. In Europe, many governments have thrown their citizens in jail—sometimes for years at a time—for criticizing mass immigration, gender ideology, and various other parts of the left-wing program.

Now, they're seeking to impose their censorship on Americans. The internet is global. It isn't split into country-by-country silos. If an EU regulator makes a platform comply with its speech codes, those speech codes end up affecting everyone who uses the platform anywhere.

So foreign bureaucrats are using extraterritorial leverage to impose a new global censorship regime. The EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) is the flagship model: it allows Brussels regulators to impose massive fines on any large platform that doesn't comply with their diktats.

This isn't abstract: The EU just fined X roughly $140 million. They claim it's about failing to comply with "transparency" rules, but that's a smokescreen. The rules are simply a tool the EU uses to punish pro-free speech platforms. The fine is a warning: Start censoring—or else.

And it's not just the EU. The UK recently passed its own DSA-style bill—the Online Safety Act—and its stringent censorship rules apply to all services that are accessible in the UK, even if the company isn’t based there. Once again, companies that fail to comply face huge fines.

This, too, is not an abstract threat: Britain’s online speech regulator, the Office of Communications (Ofcom), recently embarked on a campaign to enforce the Online Safety Act against Americans exercising their free speech rights here on American soil: arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20…

Australia’s eSafety regime has done the same: demanding U.S. companies like X take action against posts by U.S. citizens on American soil—while threatening daily fines if they failed to comply. They've also explicitly insisted X remove posts GLOBALLY; not just in Australia.

And Brazil, too, has issued global takedown orders against online speech from users on U.S. soil. But thankfully, this administration is fighting back. In July, the State Department imposed visa restrictions and sanctions against the Brazilian officials involved in these orders.

Now, it's time to take further and more aggressive action to protect American speech and sovereignty. Magnitsky Sanctions are some of our powerful tools to do just that—freezing the assets of foreign actors who violate basic rights and banning them from entering the U.S.

In the past, the State Department has used Magnitsky Sanctions against foreigners in far-flung countries who attack the rights of their citizens. In this case, they're waging a direct assault on not just their citizens, but OUR citizens, right here on our own soil.

I'm also asking the State Department to consider visa and travel restrictions. As I noted in my letter, a who's-who of this cartel recently attended a pro-censorship conference at Stanford. There's no reason we should let these people come to our country for strategy meetings.

Some of these foreign censors are currently residing in our country. Imran Ahmed—the British Labour Party operative who founded the Soros-funded Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH)—is reportedly here on a visa. The State Department should revoke it. He needs to go back.

Left-wing activist NGOs like CCDH are malignant actors, and play a similar role to the left-wing anti-"hate" groups that have gone after X and @elonmusk here in America. They have played a critical part in this global censorship enterprise, and should face the same consequences.

Under President Trump's leadership—and thanks to the incredible work of patriots like @UnderSecPD, who I met with to discuss these issues before her confirmation earlier this year—the State Department has staked out a strong pro-sovereignty, pro-free speech posture in the world.

@UnderSecPD Now, it's time to build on its successes and go further. You can read my full letter here:schmitt.senate.gov/wp-content/upl…