Reclaim the Net | Dan Frieth
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Appearing before the House Judiciary Committee, British MP Nigel Farage issued a stark warning about Britain’s trajectory on speech regulation, arguing that UK law now poses a direct threat not only to free expression at home, but also to core American liberties abroad.
In testimony submitted to the US Congress during a hearing titled “Europe’s Threat to American Speech and Innovation,” the Reform Party leader detailed how the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act (OSA), passed in 2023, is already being used to pressure American platforms into adopting restrictive UK speech codes, many of which would be flatly unconstitutional under the First Amendment.
Farage said the OSA “integrates the United Kingdom’s broad, speech-related criminal offenses with sweeping duties imposed on online platforms,” placing enforcement power in the hands of Ofcom, Britain’s communications regulator.
That authority, he warned, now includes the right to demand self-incriminating data from platform operators, punish non-compliance with up to two years’ imprisonment, and seek court orders to block access to non-compliant services.
“Ofcom has already threatened four American companies with exactly these penalties,” Farage told lawmakers. “I repeat: regulatory bodies in the United Kingdom are actively threatening to imprison American citizens for exercising their protected Constitutional rights.”
This is not a hypothetical scenario. Just last week, two US-based platforms filed suit in Washington, DC, seeking protection against UK enforcement attempts.
Their case shows the growing tension between the UK’s new speech suppression regime and America’s longstanding protections for political and controversial speech.
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