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Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned during a press briefing that he is concerned about American tourists being arrested for old social media posts.
Since the inauguration, one of the key foreign policy priorities of President Donald Trump’s administration has been freedom of speech in Europe. While America and its people have close relationship with Europe, particularly the United Kingdom, the crackdown by ostensibly liberal western democracies on free speech has been a key source of conflict.
Rubio was asked during a Dec. 19 press briefing, “The State Department mentioned earlier this year some free speech concerns, particularly in Europe. What are some goals you have in regards to that in 2026?”
“Well, I mean broadly, we’re concerned about any place first and foremost where American free speech could be implicated, all right,” he said. “Are we going to live in a world where some American puts up a social media post and then gets to some airport somewhere and is arrested?” Rubio asked. “We’re also concerned about the impact that some of their policies are having on our social media platforms, as you recently saw. X is facing this massive multimillion dollar fine that they’re going to have to pay, I guess, if they want to continue to operate.”
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Rubio went on to say, “But I think more importantly, I think it touches on the broader question that was asked a little bit earlier. We all talk about how these alliances – in many cases, our alliances with our European partners – are built on our common principles, our common values, as much as anything else. These are just a geopolitical arrangement. It is an alliance with like-minded countries with whom we share values and principles. And one of those values and principles, we hope, is freedom and the freedom of expression. And we are concerned that that is eroding.”
One recent example of European officials threatening to punish Americans was in August 2024, when a prominent London police commissioner made headlines for threatening to extradite U.S. citizens to be tried in the UK for breaking their hate speech laws online. Citizens there routinely encounter police on their doorstep for politically incorrect comments they made on social media.
Vice President JD Vance directly criticized European leaders directly at the Munich Security Conference in February, saying the continent’s recent censorship activities were a bigger threat to its existence than Russia.
“Within living memory of many of you in this room, the Cold War positioned defenders of democracy against much more tyrannical forces on this continent. And consider the side in that fight that censored dissidents, that closed churches, that canceled elections,” Vance said.
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“Unfortunately, when I look at Europe today, it’s sometimes not so clear what happened to some of the Cold War’s winners,” he continued. “I look to Brussels, where EU commissars warn citizens that they intend to shut down social media during times of civil unrest the moment they spot what they’ve judged to be ‘hateful content’ or to this very country where police have carried out raids against citizens suspected of posting anti-feminist comments online as part of ‘combating misogyny on the internet.’”
The Trump Administration also imposed visa bans on former European Union commissioner Thierry Breton, who was behind the Digital Services Act (DSA), and four fellow anti-disinformation campaigners, accusing them of censoring American platforms.
“The State Department is taking decisive action against five individuals who have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints they oppose,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.
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