US to issue visa bans for foreign nationals who ‘censor’ Americans, Rubio says

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States will impose visa bans on foreign nationals it deems to be censoring Americans, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday, unveiling a new policy Rubio suggested could target officials regulating U.S. tech companies.

Rubio said in a statement that a 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.”

(Reporting by Simon Lewis, Brendan O’Brien and Katharine Jackson; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Mark Porter)