Trump bans two British social media campaigners from US as censorship row escalates | EUROtoday

Two Britons who marketing campaign in opposition to misinformation and hate speech on-line have been denied US visas after being accused of looking for to “censor” Americans, because the UK authorities reaffirmed its stance to “upholding the right to free speech”.

Imran Ahmed, an ex-Labour adviser and ally of Sir Keir Starmer who now heads the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), and Clare Melford, CEO of the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) have been labelled “radical activists” by the Trump administration.

The pair had been amongst 5 Europeans, together with European Commissioner Thierry Breton, barred from coming into the US.

US secretary of state Marco Rubio stated they’d led “organised efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetise, and suppress American viewpoints they oppose”.

He added: “These radical activists and weaponised NGOs have advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states – in each case targeting American speakers and American companies.”

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Mr Ahmed was beforehand an aide to Labour minister Hilary Benn and Sir Keir’s influential chief of employees Morgan McSweeney served as a director at CCDH till 2020. He is reportedly based mostly within the group’s Washington workplace and so will face deportation from the nation because of the visa ban.

The visa bans are the newest transfer in a US marketing campaign aimed toward European guidelines supposed to manage social media. Trump officers have ordered US diplomats to construct opposition to the European Union’s landmark Digital Services Act (DSA), which is meant to fight hateful speech, misinformation and disinformation, however which Washington says stifles free speech and imposes prices on tech firms.

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French former enterprise govt Thierry Breton, who served because the European commissioner for the interior market from 2019-2024, was amongst these now banned from the US.

Two senior figures from the German nonprofit HateHelp had been additionally denied visas.

Following the ban, the UK authorities stated it’s “fully committed to upholding the right to free speech”, with a spokesperson saying: “While every country has the right to set its own visa rules, we support the laws and institutions which are working to keep the internet free from the most harmful contact.

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“Social media platforms should not be used to disseminate child sex abuse material, incite hatred and violence, or spread fake information and videos for that purpose”.

A European Commission spokesperson stated it “strongly condemns the US decision”, including: “Freedom of expression is a fundamental right in Europe and a shared core value with the United States across the democratic world”.

French president Emmanuel Macron stated: “These measures amount to intimidation and coercion aimed at undermining European digital sovereignty”. He stated that the EU’s digital rules would “ensure fair competition among platforms, without targeting any third country, and to ensure that what is illegal offline is also illegal online”.

He added in an extra assertion on the social media platform X that he had spoken with Mr Breton and “thanked him for his significant contributions in the service of Europe”.

Meanwhile Germany’s justice ministry stated that the 2 German’s focused had the federal government’s “support and solidarity”. They added that the visa bans had been unacceptable and stated: “Anyone who describes this as censorship is misrepresenting our constitutional system”.

Terror regulation watchdog Jonathan Hall KC stated the imposition of sanctions by the US was a “significant move”.

The impartial reviewer of terror laws instructed Times Radio: “Sanctions are generally reserved for really serious matters of foreign policy where a country feels that its own interests are being severely threatened or where the world order feels threatened.”