US Bans Former EU Commissioner from Internet Because Digital Speech Is Dangerous

Photo by Gi González Carrasco on Unsplash

KEY POINTS

•The Trump Administration announced bans blocking American internet access for Thierry Breton and four foreign researchers in 2025.
•Secretary of State Marco Rubio threatened to add more names, pressuring foreign digital content moderators to 'reverse course.'
•Researcher Imran Ahmed from the CCDH was named among the banned, highlighting US retaliation against global content moderation.

On a bright Tuesday to remember in late 2025, the Trump Administration stepped up their 21st-century game of 'Who's Getting Blocked?' by announcing that Thierry Breton, the former EU Commissioner for Internal Market and Services, is now persona non grata for accessing anything online in the US. This surprise move also caught researchers like Imran Ahmed from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), who presumably specialized in moderating hate but now can’t moderate from America. Secretary of State Marco Rubio ominously promised the new blacklist might expand, hilariously hinting foreign content moderators should rethink their life choices or risk global digital exile. All this sparked at the event 'Economic Transformation, Net-Zero Valley and Digitalization'—because nothing says 'net-zero' like zero online access.