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J.D. Tuccille: The global threat to free speech has a British accent

U.K. regulator is trying to censor American websites, but one lawyer is fighting government over-reach with a sense of humour

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British media recently reported that the country’s internet regulator, Ofcom, imposed millions of pounds worth of fines for forbidden content, but collected only a pittance from scofflaw firms. Unmentioned was that some of the targeted companies are based in the United States, where they’re protected by the First Amendment, and have no presence in the United Kingdom beyond their websites’ accessibility. In an age in which bureaucrats worldwide are seeking power beyond national borders, U.K. censors are distinguishing themselves for their ambitions — and the humiliation they’ve so far suffered.

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According to a report from British broadcaster LBC, “adult sites brazenly ‘ignore’ Ofcom fines” imposed on them for failing to implement age checks on users seeking access to information that’s subject to age restrictions in the U.K. The report adds that, “Ofcom has recovered just £55,000 of fines out of over £3 million imposed on companies in breach of child safety laws.”

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It’s true that Ofcom has collected only a fraction of the fines levied under its authority to regulate internet content, which was significantly enhanced by the 2023 Online Safety Act. But the entertainment value provided by some of the allegedly offending platforms’ lawyer shows the regulator has arguably received more than its money’s worth.

In October 2025, Preston Byrne — a Connecticut-based technology attorney who volunteers his services to four companies targeted by Ofcom, including the controversial website 4chan — replied to a document dump from the internet regulator with a pithy email: “Thank you for the several dozen pages of, in America, legally void correspondence. It will make excellent bedding for my pet hamster.”

In February of this year, after Ofcom sniffily warned that, “The deadline for 4chan to submit written representations to Ofcom … has now passed,” and that a final decision was pending, Byrne responded: “Mr. Whiskers looks forward to your confirmation decision, which will be shredded and used to line his enclosure upon receipt.” He included a photo of the hamster peering from his cage.

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Byrne doesn’t just snipe at British bureaucrats. He and his clients also sued Ofcom, claiming that the body’s censorship efforts violate Americans’ constitutionally protected rights. Ofcom responded with a claim of “sovereign immunity,” asserting that U.K. law applies to Americans, but U.S. law can’t touch British regulators.

Ofcom also insists that the First Amendment doesn’t protect 4chan and other American platforms because the Online Safety Act “expressly anticipates that it will have extra-territorial effect,” so “providers of services based outside the United Kingdom can have duties under the act.”

In response, Byrne and company authored a proposed “guaranteeing rights against novel international tyranny and extortion” (GRANITE) act, which would would penalize foreign regulators that threaten the protected rights of Americans, including allowing the seizure of foreign government assets. A version of the bill is working its way through Wyoming’s legislature.

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Sen. Eric Schmitt plans to introduce something similar at the federal level. “Foreign bureaucrats have zero right to tell Americans what they can and can’t say,” he said in December. “I’m working on legislation to protect American speech from foreign subversion.”

This confrontation has been several years in the making. In a 2023 report on the “global free speech recession,” the Future of Free Speech, a Vanderbilt University think-tank, cautioned that, “The global landscape for freedom of expression has faced severe challenges,” and that, “Even open democracies have implemented restrictive measures.”

The authors called out the European Union for its extraterritorial censorship ambitions and warned that the British Online Safety Act’s “stringent regulations and substantial financial penalties for not removing illegal content could inadvertently lead to the suppression of lawful speech.”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) also eyes the British law with concern. “The Online Safety Act is a threat to the privacy of users, restricts free expression by arbitrating speech online, exposes users to algorithmic discrimination through face checks and leaves millions of people without a personal device or form of ID excluded from accessing the internet,” the organization warned last year.

EFF publishes a guide to using virtual private networks (VPNs) so that internet users can bypass such restrictive laws by appearing to surf the internet from unaffected jurisdictions. That advice has been enthusiastically adopted by Britons, who have downloaded privacy-enhancing software in record numbers in recent years.

But VPNs aren’t enough when censors assert the authority to regulate beyond their borders, in countries where such content is perfectly legal. With reference to European Union regulations, Columbia law professor Anu Bradford has warned of a “Brussels Effect,” by which tech companies and platforms around the world adopt restrictive EU standards for all their users because it’s easier, cheaper and legally safer than setting varying rules for different countries.

Ofcom’s claim that it has authority over American websites because British law gives it such power makes it clear that the phenomenon is poised to turn into a race to the censorious bottom to see which regime can apply its regulations everywhere.

Ofcom’s recent efforts to extend its control over streaming services led the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression to warn that, “Residents of the U.K. — as well as the streaming companies officials intend to regulate and their global audiences who watch them — have reason to worry.”

They should worry if U.S.-based platforms surrender to overseas censors. So far, that hasn’t happened, if the sparring between Byrne and his clients on one hand, and Ofcom on the other, is any indication. Sen. Schmitt’s promise to introduce legislation to penalize foreign censors is also encouraging, since Congress can expose foreign officials to civil liability in ways not available to state lawmakers.

None of this is to suggest that all the content targeted by British censors is anodyne. “Even I find the content on this forum objectionable,” Byrne wrote of Sanctioned Suicide, one of the platforms he represents. “But my job is not to defend the forum’s content, it is to defend its civil rights. My client has the right to speak and its rights will be defended.”

So far, the U.S. remains a haven for principled free speech protections. The world may be in a free speech recession, but Mr. Whiskers stands ready to bed down in the censors’ presumptuous dictates.

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