‘Undermines free speech’: Labour MP hits back at US government over visa ban on UK campaigners
A senior Labour MP has accused the Trump administration of undermining free speech after Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, announced sanctions against two British anti-disinformation campaigners.Chi Onwurah, the chair of parliament’s technology select committee, criticised the US government hours after it announced “visa-related” sanctions against five Europeans, including Imran Ahmed and Clare Melford.Ahmed leads the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), while Melford is chief executive of the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), both of which have clashed directly with Elon Musk, the owner of X and a former adviser to the US president, Donald Trump.Onwurah said on Wednesday: “Banning people because you disagree with what they say undermines the free speech the administration claims to seek.“We desperately need a wide ranging debate on whether and how social media should be regulated in the interests of the people.
Imran Ahmed gave evidence to the select committee’s inquiry into social media, algorithms and harmful content, and he was an articulate advocate for greater regulation and accountability.“Banning him won’t shut down the debate, too many people are being harmed by the spread of digital hate.”Her comments came after Rubio accused the five – who also include the former EU commissioner Thierry Breton – of leading “organised efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetise and suppress American viewpoints they oppose”.Sarah Rogers, an official at the state department, posted on X: “Our message is clear: if you spend your career fomenting censorship of American speech, you’re unwelcome on American soil.”The CCDH has previously incurred the wrath of Musk over its reports chronicling the rise of racist, antisemitic and extremist content on X since he took over the platform.
Musk tried unsuccessfully to sue the organisation last year, before calling it a “criminal organisation”.The X owner has also called for the GDI to be shut down over its criticism of rightwing websites for spreading disinformation.And he has railed against the EU’s Digital Services Act, which Breton helped spearhead, and under which X was hit with a €120m (£105m) fine for what the EU called the deceptive design of its blue tick system for verifying users.Melford is UK-based, while Ahmed, whose organisation once employed Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, as a director, lives in Washington DC with his family.A spokesperson for GDI called the sanctions “an authoritarian attack on free speech and an egregious act of government censorship”.
They added: “The Trump administration is, once again, using the full weight of the federal government to intimidate, censor and silence voices they disagree with.Their actions today are immoral, unlawful and un-American.”Ahmed has been approached for comment.A British government spokesperson said: “While every country has the right to set its own visa rules, we support the laws and institutions which are working to keep the internet free from the most harmful content.”That response contrasted however with the more combative stance taken by the French government and the European Commission.
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said the measures “amount to intimidation and coercion aimed at undermining European digital sovereignty”.The Commission said in a statement it “strongly condemns” the actions of the Trump administration.Campaigners in the UK warned the British government was likely to be targeted further if the Trump administration steps up its attacks on tech regulation.Ava Lee, the executive director of People Vs Big Tech, said: “The Trump administration is escalating its attacks on Europeans trying to uphold the rule of law when it comes to big tech.With the Online Safety Act (OSA), the UK is likely to be next in the firing line.
”The Trump administration has previously flagged its concerns about the OSA,This year a group of officials from the state department met Ofcom, the regulator charged with overseeing the act, and are understood to have raised concerns that the act will risk infringing free speech,Beeban Kidron, a crossbench peer in the UK’s House of Lords and a prominent online safety campaigner, said Rubio’s comments on the visa bans were an “outrage”,“The US tech sector, backed by the US administration, is attempting to undermine European laws and values,” she said,
The Guide #222: From Celebrity Traitors to The Brutalist via Bad Bunny – our roundup of the culture that mattered in 2025
It’s time to look back on a year of Traitors and Sinners, of Bad Bunnies and Such Brave Girls, with the Guide’s now annual roundup of the year’s best culture. As ever, the Guardian is already knee-deep in lists – of films (UK and US), albums (across rock and pop, and classical), TV shows, books and games, and theatre, comedy and dance. Some of those have already counted down to No 1, others will reach their respective summits in the coming days, so keep an eye on the homepage.Our list meanwhile is entirely, unapologetically partial, and definitely not as comprehensive as The Guardian’s many top 50s: there are numerous albums we never got around to hearing, and TV shows we’re still only halfway through. (Pluribus, Dope Thief and Blue Lights, I will return to you, I promise!) But hopefully it should give a flavour of a year that, despite so many headwinds, was a pretty strong one for culture
From Avatar to Amadeus: your complete entertainment guide to the week ahead
Avatar: Fire and AshOut now James Cameron comes down with a case of the Christmas blues, so to speak, as the director’s record-breaking franchise epic returns once more to planet Pandora for more internecine strife and respecting of the splendour of the natural world, rendered in dazzling motion-capture glory.Silent Night, Deadly NightOut now Actor Rohan Campbell graduates from Michael Myers wannabe in the fairly dire Halloween Ends, to main bogeyman Billy Chapman in the latest instalment of the Silent Night, Deadly Night franchise (second remake, seventh film overall, fact fans). Per franchise lore, he witnessed his parents’ murder-by-Santa aged five, and the rest is grisly history.Fackham HallOut now Jimmy Carr turns his hand to screenwriting with this parody of Downton Abbey-type films. Given the actual Downton Abbey films already play as a parody of Downtown Abbey-type films, there may not be much to add, but a cast including Thomasin McKenzie, Katherine Waterston, Damian Lewis and Anna Maxwell Martin are here to give it their best shot
Jimmy Kimmel on a tumultuous year: ‘Don’t know what the American way even is any more’
Late-night hosts reflected on a rollercoaster 2025 and Donald Trump’s combative, primetime year-end address to the nation.Jimmy Kimmel opened his final monologue of 2025 with an emotional reflection on a tumultuous year. “This has been a strange year. It’s been a hard year,” he said. “We’ve had some lows
Jimmy Kimmel on Trump’s speech: ‘Surprise primetime episode of The Worst Wing’
Late-night hosts discussed – or ignored – Donald Trump’s surprise primetime address and dug further into the explosive new interview the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles.Jimmy Kimmel opened his Wednesday night show with an acknowledgment of the president’s 9pm ET national address, also known as a “surprise primetime episode of The Worst Wing tonight on every channel”.Trump announced only on Tuesday that he would deliver an impromptu fireside chat during the season finales of Survivor and The Floor. “It’s weird to think that had a couple of states just gone the other way, he’d be hosting one of those shows,” Kimmel joked. “Trump shouldn’t be pre-empting The Floor
Stephen Colbert on Susie Wiles’s candid interviews: ‘She dished, bish’
Late-night hosts reacted to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles’s revealing interview with Vanity Fair.“If there’s one thing Donald Trump wants, it’s a hamburger,” said Stephen Colbert on Tuesday’s Late Show. “If there’s a second thing, though, it would be to make you think that you’re crazy. That’s why periodically, I like to remind all of you that you’re not crazy. What’s happening is crazy
The 50 best albums of 2025: No 3 – Blood Orange: Essex Honey
Dev Hynes’ deeply personal response to his mother’s death embodied the many unexpected shades of grief in pastoral hymnals and post-punk The 50 best albums of 2025 More on the best culture of 2025There’s a lot of grief across the best albums of this year. It’s unsurprising: 2025 has felt like a definitive and dismal break with government accountability, protections for marginalised people and holding back the encroachment of AI in creative and intellectual fields, to cherrypick just a few horrors. Anna von Hausswolff and Rosalía reached for transcendence from these earthly disappointments. Bad Bunny and KeiyaA countered colonial abuse and neglect with writhing resistance anthems. On a more personal scale, Lily Allen and Cate Le Bon grappled with disillusionment about mis-sold romantic ideals
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