According to mirrored copies of the State Department press statement, the “Announcement of Actions to Combat the Global Censorship‑Industrial Complex” announced: 1) visa restrictions / travel bans under section 212(a)(3)(C) of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act on five named foreign individuals – former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton; Imran Ahmed (Center for Countering Digital Hate); Clare Melford (Global Disinformation Index); and Josephine Ballon and Anna‑Lena von Hodenberg (HateAid) – on the grounds that their activities allegedly coerced U.S. tech platforms to censor or suppress American viewpoints; and 2) that, based on the same foreign‑policy determination, the Department of Homeland Security could initiate removal (deportation) proceedings against certain covered individuals under INA section 237(a)(4)(C). The statement also warned the list could be expanded to additional foreign actors in future.
Mirrored copies of the document identify it as a U.S. Department of State “Press Statement” issued in the name of Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The URL structure on state.gov (now returning an error) shows it was published through the State Department’s Office of the Spokesperson. So, it was a State Department press statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, released via the Office of the Spokesperson.
In this context, the Trump administration uses the term “Global Censorship‑Industrial Complex” to describe a network of foreign officials, regulators and nongovernmental organizations that it accuses of coordinating with governments to pressure U.S.-based tech platforms to remove, demonetize, or suppress speech by Americans. The press statement applies the label specifically to people behind Europe’s Digital Services Act and to NGOs such as the Center for Countering Digital Hate, the Global Disinformation Index, and HateAid, characterizing them as “radical activists” and “weaponized NGOs” advancing foreign “censorship crackdowns” that target American speakers and companies. It is a political characterization by the U.S. government in this case, not a formal legal category.
Publicly available information does not explain why state.gov returns “Technical Difficulties … Exception: forbidden” for these specific URLs. The error message and HTTP 403‑style wording suggest a permissions or configuration problem on the State Department’s web server or content‑management system, rather than a normal, working public page, but there is no official statement clarifying whether it is a temporary outage or an intentional access restriction. In short, the exact cause is unknown from public sources.
The same State Department press statement text is not currently accessible on a functioning state.gov page, but the full text has been mirrored verbatim by GlobalSecurity.org, which attributes it to the U.S. Department of State and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Major news outlets such as CNN, NPR, and The Verge also quote and summarize the statement and identify the five sanctioned individuals. In addition, NPR and CNN report that Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers named the individuals in posts on X (formerly Twitter), indicating that parts of the announcement were disseminated through officials’ social‑media accounts and press outreach even though the original state.gov link is malfunctioning.
There is no public record indicating that the State Department has formally acknowledged the “Exception: forbidden” error on these specific URLs or provided an alternate official PDF or working state.gov link. The content of the press statement is available only through non‑government mirrors and through quotations and reporting by news organizations and officials’ social‑media posts. Searches of state.gov and news coverage do not show any separate State Department notice about the technical problem or a replacement web address for the document.