The United States has announced it will impose visa bans on foreign nationals who are deemed to be censoring American tech companies.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this on Wednesday, while unveiling a new policy that could target foreign officials regulating U.S. tech companies.
Rubio said in a statement that the new visa restriction policy would apply to foreign nationals responsible for censorship of protected expression in the United States and said it was unacceptable for foreign officials to issue or threaten arrest warrants for social media posts made on U.S. soil.
“It is similarly unacceptable for foreign officials to demand that American tech platforms adopt global content moderation policies or engage in censorship activity that reaches beyond their authority and into the United States,” Rubio said.
Rubio’s statement did not name specific countries or individuals that would be targeted, but noted that some foreign officials have taken “flagrant censorship actions against U.S. tech companies and U.S. citizens and residents when they have no authority to do so.”
