White House Warns Starmer: Stop Threatening US Tech Companies’ Free Speech
The White House has warned Sir Keir Starmer to stop threatening American tech companies amid mounting backlash over Britain’s online safety law. The Telegraph has more.
Members of Donald Trump’s administration are monitoring the Online Safety Act with “great interest and concern” after key allies said it was censoring free speech and imposing unfair burdens on US businesses.
The law, which regulates online speech, allows the British government to levy massive fines on companies like Apple, Truth Social, and X if it finds that rules on hate speech have been broken.
Those in the President’s inner circle see the potential penalties as an unwarranted foreign intervention into American free speech.
“President Trump has made it clear that free speech is one of our most cherished freedoms as Americans,” a senior US State Department official told the Telegraph.
“Accordingly, we have taken decisive action against foreign actors who have engaged in extraterritorial censorship affecting our companies and fellow citizens.
“We will continue to monitor developments in the UK with great interest and concern.”
Since the law came into effect last week, Ofcom, the UK’s online regulator, has written to several American firms ordering them to conform to the act, in letters seen by the Telegraph.
It has sparked outrage from US lawmakers and legal experts, who say the overreach is a threat by the UK to silence American companies and citizens.
Congressman Jim Jordan, chair of the House Judiciary GOP committee, said the law was an attack on American companies.
“Ask Apple and they would view it as a $500 million attack,” he told the Telegraph.
“There’s general concern… and then there’s concern on how this impacts American citizens, American companies and infringes on our First Amendment.
“As long as foreign legislators, judges, and regulators continue their attempts to silence US citizens, we will not stop fighting back.”
Mr Jordan also raised concerns over the bill’s overreach with Peter Kyle, the Science Secretary, on Wednesday.
Under the law, social media giants face fines of up to £18m ($24m), or 10 per cent of their annual revenue, if they fail to remove content deemed harmful from their platforms.
While the measures are designed to protect young people from dangerous content, critics argue that it pressures platforms into censoring users by removing their content if it is disliked by others, even though it is perfectly legal.
Social media apps such as X, Reddit and TikTok have been forced to introduce age verification checks since the bill came into effect last week.
The warning to Sir Keir is the latest sign of Donald Trump’s willingness to intervene in domestic British affairs amid a growing transatlantic rift over the protection of freedom of speech.
During his meeting with the Prime Minister in Scotland, Mr Trump warned Sir Keir not to censor his social-media platform, Truth Social.
“Well, I don’t think he’s going to censor my site, because I say only good things,” Mr Trump said.
In May, the Telegraph revealed that the president sent US officials to meet British pro-life activists over censorship concerns.
The diplomats from the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour (BDHL) travelled to London in March in an effort to “affirm the importance of freedom of expression in the UK and across Europe”.
Led by Samuel Samson, a senior adviser in the state department, they met with officials from the Foreign Office and challenged Ofcom over the Online Safety Act.
Since then, the Trump administration has also raised questions about the conviction and sentencing of several high profile cases like that of Lucy Connolly.
Worth reading in full.
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Po-faced UK politicians say that the act is all about protecting children, whereas it is apparent to many of us that that excuse is the means by which they seek to censor news and control what we are able to access. Plain as a bloody pikestaff – thank heaven for President Trump and VP Vance.
Pragmatic politicians achieve their aims by scaring us the populace with some hobgoblin, then offering to protect us from it, then passing restrictive laws and raising taxes under that banner, leaving us to foot the bill and feel the walls of our self-imposed prison. It has been thus for millennia, as H L Mencken observed. Each generation invents its own hobgoblin. Globally, the previous one, globally, invented “Protect the Planet”. Nationally, the current one invented “Protect the NHS, the Neurodivergent and the Refugees”. Yet nobody dares to market Protect The Populace and Free Speech”; or rather, if they do, they are marginalised as “Far-right”. I am optimistic that the Overton Window will eventually drift, or be driven, to include such currently taboo subjects, if not this year then certainly in 2029.
You are right but I’m sorry to say that I think the true Overton window is invisible under the present conditions. Most people know where it is and it’s not much different (for them) than it was many years ago. The problem is that politicians and the media are in cahoots in telling us that the window has moved, the reality is that it hasn’t and people are beginning to realise that, even though, probably, 99%have no idea what it is.
As most people who comment here know, the population has been systematically lied to since around 1990, by a combination of smear, lies and intimidation. It’s happening all over the western world but as usual the English are suffering most. Maybe that’s why we have been at the forefront of reform for the past 1000 or so years.
It sounds like VPN companies are doing quite well out of it, though….
It looks like our Yankee cousins are realising, yet again, that commies wreck everything, who would have thought it!
When the government says “It’s only for the protection of you” it’s time to be worried!
“I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.”
If you hear that. Run.
The government is only trying to look after the children.
Pakistani Rape Gangs?
Old news. Time to move on.
Next Tuesdays the lot of them.
More lies and tyranny from the UK government.
They are scrapping Ofwat as not fit for purpose, time to scrap Ofcom – Regulatory overreach and anti-democratic (as its generally understood).
Won’t happen – they are implementing exactly what the government wants…
Oh yeah I agree, won’t happen under this shower of shite government, maybe Reform would have the foresight to get rid of something so terrible.
“Content deemed harmful”? Who does the ‘deeming’, what defines ‘harmful’ and how many must be ‘harmed’ for Ofcom to play God?
I am an American, living in a Midwest state. The idea that the “government” could control my speech is laughable,online or offline.
Another way to save more taxpayers cash and to remove burdens from business.
Free speech in this country is already dead. It died the day Lucy Connelly was sent to prison, something that would not have happened in the USA because of the fifth amendment. The best way to take on the UK censorship laws is for the major US tech companies to withdraw their services from Britain. Just imagine what would happen if we Brits woke up one morning to no Facebook or X and to be told we could only have them back once the online censorship (safety) act had been repealed. There would be a meltdown of protests! Sadly, unlikely to happen!
There are many things said on here that I am amazed the OFCOM Straightjacket has not interfered, silenced or banned many of us. I wonder if Toby can give us some info on any of the absurdity that they have hit this site with.
The same thing that is happening here where tyrannical governments seek to control speech across borders has already been going on with the climate change scam for decades, where the environment has been hijacked for political purposes because it gives power to the global government people at the UN/WEF. Both are based on dodgy excuses. The first to protect children and second to save the planet when infact it was never about saving it, it is about controlling the next version of the planet.
Take away Starmer et al’s visas to visit USA? That would at least be embarrassing.
I have mixed feelings about such intervention by the US, it borders on hypocrisy. I of course deplore the OSA and all the present (and previous) regime’s attempts to erase our free speech and I welcome pushback from whatever source, but the Americans are hardly paragons of virtue when it comes to interfering in other countries’ affairs. Just look at the unequal extadition treaty between UK and USA negotiated (surrendered?) by the Blair creature. The US gets to extradite British citizens for ‘crimes,’ supposedly commited against the US by people who may never even have set foot in the country. But because they supposedly have adversely affected US companies and/or because some of the dealings were carried out internationally in dollars, they want to send them to prison for forty years. The alleged actions may not even amount to crimes in the UK. So spare me the praise of Trump and Vance, they’re just bullies.
Given Starmer’s atrocious record regarding child protection ( covering for Saville, rape gangs etc) if he thinks anyone believes his draconian online safety act is about child safety he is deluded.
its worth pointing out as well that this ridiculous and dangerous bill had its beginning under the Tories so what were they trying to hide ? Covid anyone ?