Rubio says US to refuse visas to officials over online ‘censorship’

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The United States will deny visas to foreign officials who block American social media posts, Foreign Secretary Marco Rubio announced in his latest crackdown on Wednesday.

Rubio – who has come out on fire to remove US visas from criticizing Israeli activists – he said he was working against “censorship operations” abroad against US -tech firms.

He did not name any public official who loses a visa under the new policy. But last week, he advised lawmakers that they were planning to take action against Brazil’s Supreme Court Judge Alexander D. Morris, who allegedly fought X’s owner Elon Musk to remove unknown information.

President Donald Trump’s administration – who is a capable and often confronted social media user – has also strongly criticized Germany and the UK allies for baning governments as hateful speeches.

Rubio said the United States would start restricting visas to foreign nationals who are responsible for the censorship of safe expression in the United States.

“It is unacceptable for foreign officials to issue or threaten an arrest warrant for social media posts on American platforms for foreign officials, while the US is physically present,” Rubio said in a statement.

“For foreign officials, it is unacceptable to demand that the US tech platform adopts moderate policies globally or engage in censorship activity that will reach the United States, beyond their authority,” he said.

“We will not tolerate the exploitation of US sovereignty, especially when such encroachments harm our fundamental right to free speech.”

Rubio has said that he has canceled US visas for thousands of people, large -scale students who have protested against Israeli aggression in Gaza.

In the most shown cases, Tufts is a Turkish doctorate student at the University, Remisa Oztrak, who wrote an opinion in a student newspaper that criticized the school’s position on Gaza.

American social media companies such as Facebook and Instagram Parent Meta have a similar EU content law, the Digital Services Act, the censorship of their platform. In March, the US Federal Communication Commission’s appointed chairman warned that the EU’s Digital Services Act was banned from freedom of expression.

European Union officials have defended the law, which aims to secure and improve the online environment by force tech giants to deal with illegal content, including hate speech and children’s sexual abuse content.

‘Joint values’

In a social media post on Wednesday, Rubio added, “Whether Latin America, Europe, or anywhere else, the days of inactive behavior for those working to harm Americans have ended.”

Rubio did not name specific countries or individuals that would be targeted. Brazil has clashed with the platform X -owned Trump Elon Musk, which implies to comply with orders to disperse accounts for spreading false information. The Trump administration has repeatedly called on European countries to censorship of content online.

Vice President JD Venus condemned the contents in Paris in February, calling it a “authoritarian censorship”.

In April, Rubio closed a State Department office that tried to counter foreign information, accused of censorship and wasted US taxpayers.

Announcing the move, he said that freedom of expression is very important for relations with US Western European countries, and he has warned that those who threaten free speech are “attacking our common interest, our common culture, a pillar of our common values.”

Rubio added that matters of free speech will be taken in diplomacy with the European Union and was raised separately with the Prime Minister of the UK.