Skip to content
Under Secretary of State Sarah B. Rogers@UnderSecPD · Dec 23, 2025

Today, the United States issued SANCTIONS reinforcing the "red line" I invoked on @GBNEWS. Namely: extraterritorial…

11 tweets1 min read22.1Koriginal

Summary

The U.S. State Department has sanctioned five foreign individuals and leaders of censorship-focused NGOs, including figures from the EU, UK, and Germany, citing their efforts to suppress American free speech through extraterritorial censorship campaigns and collaboration with U.S. government officials. The sanctions target organizations like the Center for Countering Digital Hate and Global Disinformation Index, which the administration argues have weaponized "disinformation" and "hate speech" designations to pressure social media platforms into censoring American speech and press.

Summarized by ThreadOut AI from the full thread. May miss nuance — read the thread below.

  1. #1

    Today, the United States issued SANCTIONS reinforcing the "red line" I invoked on @GBNEWS. Namely: extraterritorial censorship of Americans. Today's sanctions target the censorship-NGO ecosystem.🧵

    GB News@GBNEWS · Dec 4, 2025

    ‘To censor Americans in America is a deal breaker.’ US Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, Sarah Rogers, blasts the proposed Online Safety Act, saying the law ‘vastly overreaches’ into other countries, calling it a ‘red line’. 📺 Freeview 236, Sky 512, Virgin 6

  2. #2

    These sanctions are visa-related. We aren't invoking severe Magnitsky-style financial measures, but our message is clear: if you spend your career fomenting censorship of American speech, you're unwelcome on American soil.

    Secretary Marco Rubio@SecRubio · Dec 23, 2025

    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. Today, @StateDept will take steps to bar leading figures of the global censorship-industrial complex from entering the United States. We stand ready and willing to expand this list if others do not reverse course.

  3. #3

    Our targets are foreign, but you'll notice that some collaborated with U.S. bureaucrats on Murthy-style speech suppression. Don't worry: we're pursuing transparency, truth, and reconciliation at the @StateDept, too.

  4. #4

    WE’VE SANCTIONED: Thierry Breton, a mastermind of the Digital Services Act. In August 2024, while serving as European Commissioner for Internal Markets and Digital Services, he published a letter using the DSA to threaten @elonmusk ahead of his livestream interview with President Trump. Before the interview, Breton ominously reminded Musk of @X’s legal obligations and ongoing “formal proceedings” for alleged noncompliance with “illegal content” and “disinformation” requirements under the DSA.

  5. #5

    WE’VE SANCTIONED: Imran Ahmed, key collaborator with the Biden Administration’s effort to weaponize the government against U.S. citizens. Ahmed’s group, Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), created the infamous “disinformation dozen” report, which called for platforms to deplatform twelve American “anti-vaxxers”, including now-HHS Secretary @SecKennedy. Leaked documents from CCDH show the organization listed “kill Musk’s Twitter” and “trigger EU and UK regulatory action” as priorities. The organization supports the UK’s Online Safety Act and EU’s Digital Services Act to expand censorship in Europe and around the world.

  6. #6

    WE'VE SANCTIONED: Clare Melford. She leads Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a UK-based organization that monitors websites for “hate speech” and “disinformation”. If you question Canadian blood libels about residential schools, you're engaging in “hate speech” according to Melford and GDI. This NGO used @StateDept taxpayer money to exhort censorship and blacklisting of American speech and press. They also joined the deleterious EU Code of Practice on Disinformation.

  7. #7

    WE'VE SANCTIONED: Anna-Lena von Hodenberg, the leader and founder of HateAid, a German organization founded after the 2017 German federal elections to counter conservative groups. HateAid is an official “trusted flagger” (a censor) under the EU’s anti-speech Digital Services Act (DSA) and routinely demands access to propriety social media platform data to help it censor more. Hodenberg cited threat of “disinformation” from “right-wing extremists” online in upcoming U.S. and EU elections when circulating a petition for the DSA to become more strongly enforced to allow data access for “researchers".

  8. #8

    WE’VE SANCTIONED: Josephine Ballon, co-leader of HateAid, who flags disfavored speech throughout Europe under the Digital Services Act. In addition to her running an official “trusted flagger” body under the DSA, she serves on Germany’s Advisory Council of the Digital Services Coordinator (DSC), which directly advises Germany’s DSC on the application and enforcement of the DSA. In February 2025, Ballon spoke before an American audience in a notable 60 Minutes interview, outlining her position on censorship succinctly: “Free speech needs boundaries.” In October 2024, she vowed to stop the “emotionalization of debates” by “regulating platforms".

  9. #9

    None of those sanctioned is a current UK or EU official—however, we know that foreign government officials are actively targeting the United States. This week, the UK’s Liberal Democrats claimed President’s Trump National Security Strategy amounts to “foreign interference” by a “hostile foreign state” because it correctly identifies mass migration and decaying national sovereignty as existential European security concerns. theguardian.com/politics/2025/…

  10. #10

    Our targets are foreign, but you'll notice that some collaborated with U.S. bureaucrats on Murthy-style speech suppression. Don't worry: we're pursuing transparency, truth, and reconciliation at the @StateDept, too.

  11. #11

    @StateDept As @SecRubio has noted, today's list is illustrative not exhaustive. We stand "ready and willing to expand" it. state.gov/releases/offic…