Rubio Announces Visa Restrictions For Foreign Nationals Who Censor Americans The Trump administration is implementing visa restrictions on foreign nationals with histories of censoring Americans, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Wednesday. “For too long, Americans have been fined, harassed, and even charged by foreign authorities for exercising their free speech rights,” Rubio wrote in an X post. “Free speech is essential to the American way of life — a birthright over which foreign governments have no authority.” According to the secretary, this new policy “will apply to foreign officials and persons who are complicit in censoring Americans.” Any noncitizen “who work to undermine the rights of Americans should not enjoy the privilege of traveling to our country,” he added. “Whether in Latin America, Europe, or elsewhere, the days of passive treatment for those who work to undermine the rights of Americans are over,” Rubio wrote. As indicated by the former senator, Americans have often found themselves victimized by foreign figures engaged in enterprises devoted to censoring speech. For example, until a few years ago, the British government funded what is known as the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a U.K.-based “disinformation” tracking organization that aims to blacklist and effectively cut off ad revenue to conservative-leaning news outlets, including The Federalist. As Victoria Marshall previously wrote in these pages, GDI’s “shadowy network of tracking groups labels the content on these independent news sites as disinformation so brands will not offer ads on their sites,” with a goal of “financially hurt[ing] independent publications and ultimately prevent[ing] them from disseminating content.” The U.K. government’s embrace of censorship practices has received condemnation from President Trump and high-ranking administration officials (including Rubio). Commitments by the U.K. to end such practices against Americans and its own people were not included in the new tentative trade deal agreed to by Washington and London earlier this month, however. __________________________ The Democrats tacitly agreed with such censorship.
The UK is now making over 10,000 arrests each year for online comments. Fortunately Rubio is making a stand that Americans won't be targeted.
So he is huffing and puffing over a scenario that happens how much? He has been castigated by US Senators for authoritarian, anti-American and unconstitutional actions recently. Domestic political theatre: stoking outrage over a fringe phenomenon to inflame the base, to please Elon. I imagine China and Turkey have cluttered up Interpol requests spuriously but when else can it apply? The odd dual citizen? If Germany tells X to filter out an American's neo Nazi's posts being viewed in Germany, that only applies in Germany to their IPs. German regulators can demand geo-blocking or fines for noncompliance to the platform within their jurisdiction. This doesn’t silence the American in America. This makes it look like its about people rights when its really Musk’s legal fights with EU regulators over hate speech enforcement on X. His desire to evade regional platform responsibilities while still extracting global ad revenue. A broader billionaire-libertarian campaign to redefine “free speech” as “no consequences, anywhere”.