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They Helped Women Fight Online Abuse. They Were Barred From the U.S.

NYT > Business > Media · Adam Satariano and Patrick Junker · last updated

The founders of HateAid, a German human-rights group that helps victims of online attacks, were accused by the Trump administration of being part of a “global censorship-industrial complex.”

Josephine Ballon was on her couch in Berlin two nights before Christmas when she received an email saying that her visa for traveling to the United States had been revoked.

She was stunned, but not entirely surprised. In the preceding months, Ms. Ballon had worried that the organization she co-leads, HateAid, was under scrutiny from the Trump administration and its allies for supporting Germany’s tough social media rules. Last year, Vice President JD Vance had called those policies “lunacy” and “Orwellian.”

 

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