On Tuesday, the Trump administration threatened to retaliate by targeting foreigners involved in content moderation. The State Department announced the barring of US access to former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton as well as four researchers, while issuing deliberately chilling threats to others, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio claiming, “The State Department is ready and willing to expand today’s list if other foreign actors do not change course.”
The State Department says one of the researchers who has been banned and could now be deported is Imran Ahmed, who runs the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), an organization that aims to identify and push back against online hate speech, which Elon Musk tried and failed to censor with a lawsuit dismissed in early 2024. In his ruling, Judge Charles Breyer wrote that X’s motivation for suing was “to punish CCDH for CCDH publications that criticized
Other researchers include Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon, leaders of HateAid, a nonprofit that tried to sue
The press release announcing the restrictions is titled “Announcing Actions to Combat the Global Censorship-Industrial Complex”, which is a claimed goal of Republicans such as House Judiciary Committee leader Jim Jordan, as he has worked against efforts to impose fact-checking and misinformation research on social networks. earlier this month, reuters The State Department has reportedly ordered US consulates to consider rejecting H-1B visa applicants involved in content moderation, and a few days ago, the Office of the US Trade Representative threatened to retaliate against European tech giants like Spotify and SAP over alleged “discriminatory” activity in regulating US tech platforms.
<a href