Category World News

Five Europeans have been subject to visa bans by the US, including a former European Union commissioner, for allegedly pressuring tech companies to censor and suppress “American viewpoints” they oppose.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio referred to the individuals as “radical activists” who engaged in “advanced censorship crackdowns” against “American speakers and businesses” in a statement released on Tuesday.

Ideologues in Europe have been spearheading coordinated efforts for far too long to impose American views on platforms they oppose, he said on X.

He continued, “The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate these egregious extraterritorial censorship.”

Thierry Breton, who served as the internal market’s European commissioner from 2019 to 2019, was the most notable target.

The French businessman is referred to as the “mastermind” behind the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), a landmark law designed to combat hateful speech, misinformation, and disinformation on online platforms, by Sarah Rogers, the undersecretary for public diplomacy.

Prior to an interview Musk conducted with Trump during the last year’s presidential campaign, Rogers claimed Breton had threatened Elon Musk, the owner of X and close ally of US President Donald Trump.

“Witch hunt”

In a post on X, Breton criticized the visa ban, calling it a “witch hunt” and drawing comparisons to the McCarthy era, in which officials were allegedly forced out of the government due to ties to communism.

Censorship, he said, “isn’t where you think it is,” to our American friends.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate’s CEO Imran Ahmed, Josephine Ballon and Anna-Lena von Hodenberg, German organization leaders, and Global Disinformation Index (GDI) director Clare Melford, are also named by Rogers.

Jean-Noel Barrot, the French minister for Europe and foreign affairs, “strongly” condemned the visa restrictions, claiming that the EU “cannot allow the rules governing their digital space to be imposed on them by others.” He emphasized that the DSA “has no extraterritorial reach and in any way affects the United States” and that it was “democratically adopted in Europe.”

The visa bans were cited by HateAid’s Ballon and von Holdenberg as an attempt to impede US companies operating in Europe from enforcing European law.

A government that uses censorship allegations to silence those who fight for human rights and freedom of expression, they said in a statement.

The GDI’s spokesperson added that the US action was “an authoritarian attack on free speech and an egregious act of government censorship,” as well as “immoral, unlawful, and un-American.”

The Trump administration published a National Security Strategy that accused European leaders of censoring free speech and repressing opposition to immigration policies, accusing them of risking “civilizational erasure” for the continent.

The DSA has become a hot button in US-EU relations in particular, with US conservatives calling it a tool of censorship of right-wing ideas in Europe and elsewhere, a claim Brussels refutes.

Major platforms are required by the legislation to explain content-moderation decisions, provide transparency for users, and grant researchers access to study subjects like children’s exposure to dangerous content.

After the EU fined Musk’s X for breaking DSA guidelines for transparency in advertising and its methods to ensure users were verified and real people, tensions grew even more this month.

Washington last week made the case that important European companies, including Accenture, DHL, Mistral, Siemens, and Spotify, might be targeted in response.

The US has also criticised the UK’s Online Safety Act, which mandates similar content management standards for major social media platforms.

The UK’s tech cooperation agreement was terminated last week by the White House because it stifled its implementation.

After months of intense fighting with Russian forces, the Ukrainian military claims that its forces have withdrawn from Siversk, a battle-scarred town in eastern Donetsk.

Ukraine’s General Staff stated in a statement on Telegram on Tuesday that Russian troops had a “significant advantage” over Ukrainian troops in terms of manpower and equipment and that they were constantly putting pressure on the Ukrainian troops by conducting small-unit assaults in challenging weather conditions.

The General Staff stated that Ukraine’s decision to withdraw its forces was based on “preserving the lives of our soldiers and the units’ combat capabilities.”

Before the retreating orders were issued, Russian forces suffered significant losses, Siversk is still “under the control of our troops,” and enemy units are being blocked, the General Staff continued.

Late on Tuesday, a site for Ukraine’s DeepState military monitoring revealed that Russian forces had taken control of Hrabovske, a village in the Sumy region of Ukraine, close to Russia’s border.

Russian President Vladimir Putin informed Russian President Sergei Medvedev on December 11 that troops had taken Siversk, a region where fighting has been frequent in recent months, but Ukrainian officials at the time denied the Russian reports.

Russian troops were “taking advantage of unfavourable weather conditions” to launch attacks, according to the Ukrainian military at the time, but were mostly being “destroyed on the approaches.”

Siversk was crucial to the defense of northern Donetsk, according to the Kyiv Independent news site, despite its small size and pre-war population of 10,000, of which only a few hundred civilians are still there.

The town, according to the Kyiv Independent, had provided protection for the larger Sloviansk and Kramatorsk regions, which Russia has been unable to conquer since the start of fighting.

One of three Ukrainian regions that faces Russian territorial demands is Donetsk, which serves as the stumbling blocks to a ceasefire agreement. The leaders of Ukraine have declared that they will not concede the territory that Moscow invaded.

According to the Reuters news agency, Russian forces had already seized more than 80% of Donetsk, Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014, and the entire Luhansk region, by early December.

According to Reuters, Russian forces also control the regions of Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv, and Dnipropetrovsk, or about 75% of the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions.

A negotiated settlement, according to a 28-point peace plan put forth by US President Donald Trump’s administration last month, would result in the designation of Crimea, Luhansk, and Donetsk as “de facto Russians, including by the US.”

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, recently stated that the United States is urging Ukraine to leave its forces in the Donetsk region in order to create a “free economic zone,” which he claimed the Russian side refers to as a “demilitarized zone.”

Pope depressed as Christmas fighting continues.

At least three people were killed on Monday night when Russian forces launched another “massive attack” on Kyiv on the battlefield, according to Zelenskyy, who said it on Tuesday.

In the Belgorod region of Russia, four people were killed by Ukrainian drone attacks in the past two days, according to local authorities.

Pope Leo expressed disappointment on Tuesday over Russia’s apparent refusal to agree to a ceasefire on December 25, which is the holiday of many Christians.

Speaking to reporters outside his Castel Gandolfo, Italy, he said, “I will make an appeal one more time to people of goodwill to respect at least Christmas Day as a day of peace.”

There will be at least 24 hours of peace, he said, and they might listen to us.

Many Orthodox people in Ukraine and Russia observe Christmas on January 7, which means the majority of them are Christians.

Conflict between the army and SDF is getting worse.