The European Union hit Elon Musk's X with a $140 million fine last December for letting Americans speak freely online.
Now a Republican state representative in New Hampshire has had enough.
What he just filed could make every foreign censorship order like it worthless on American soil.
What the New Hampshire GRANITE Act Would Do to Foreign Censorship Orders
New Hampshire State Rep. Calvin Beaulier filed formal paperwork on September 1 to bring the GRANITE Act – Guaranteeing Rights Against Novel International Tyranny and Extortion Act – to the 2027 legislative session.
Under the bill, no New Hampshire court could recognize, enforce, or execute any foreign judgment, fine, or order targeting speech the First Amendment protects.
State agencies, officials, and employees would be banned from cooperating with foreign censorship enforcement – no service of process, no information sharing, no assistance of any kind.
Beaulier was direct about what is at stake.
"Foreign governments keep trying to export their censorship laws and intimidate us for speaking freely," he said in a video announcing the filing. "Our courts will not recognize any unconstitutional foreign gag orders or fines. Our state agencies will not cooperate or assist with any attempts to enforce them."
"New Hampshire will be the world's granite fortress of free speech."
How the EU and UK Online Safety Act Are Already Targeting American Speech
This is not a hypothetical threat. Britain's Ofcom – the regulatory arm of the UK's Online Safety Act – has already sent 197 enforcement notices to American companies operating entirely on American soil under American law.
When U.S.-based internet forum 4chan refused to hand over internal documents and revenue data to British regulators, Ofcom escalated the fines until they reached $691,000. 4chan's attorney, Preston Byrne, sent back a photo of a hamster.
The EU ran the same play with X, and the penalties it can impose reach 6 percent of a company's global revenue – meaning a European bureaucrat sets fines based on what a company earns from customers in Tennessee, Montana, and New Hampshire.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio called it what it was: "censoring Americans."
This is not just about big tech. Every conservative news site, every Christian podcast, every America First social media account that reaches a reader in Europe is potentially subject to the same regime.
The House Judiciary Committee confirmed in a July 2025 report that the EU was pressuring American platforms behind closed doors to adopt censorship standards as "voluntary" conduct codes. Companies that declined faced nine-figure fines. The speech they were pressured to suppress was political speech – the kind Americans read, share, and forward every day.
Wyoming Passed the First GRANITE Act – Now New Hampshire Follows
Beaulier is not starting from scratch. Wyoming State Rep. Daniel Singh introduced the first GRANITE Act in January 2026, and the Wyoming House passed it 46 – 12 on February 23. The bill died in the Senate when the short budget session ended, but Wyoming is bringing a revised version back in 2027. West Virginia introduced its own version weeks later.
On July 24, the American Legislative Exchange Council – the national organization that helps state legislators share proven conservative policy solutions – adopted the GRANITE shield provisions as national model policy. That designation puts the bill on the agenda of Republican-controlled legislatures across the country. Beaulier's New Hampshire bill follows that model directly.
Attorney Preston Byrne, who co-drafted the Wyoming bill, counts at least five separate public versions of the GRANITE blueprint now in circulation and calls state-by-state adoption the most realistic path to real enforcement pressure on foreign regulators, regardless of what Congress does.
The logic is simple. Foreign censors rely on American courts and American agencies to make their fines stick on U.S. soil. Cut off that cooperation state by state, and the enforcement mechanism collapses. Brussels and London can issue all the fines they want. If no American courthouse will recognize them and no American official will help serve them, they are paper.
Why State Free Speech Laws Can Stop Foreign Censorship Without Congress
Congress is moving too. Rep. Michael Rulli introduced a federal GRANITE Act on August 27, and Rep. Warren Davidson followed with a second federal bill twelve days later. But states have always been the proving ground for ideas Washington is too slow to act on.
The model is the federal SPEECH Act of 2010, which blocked foreign defamation judgments from being enforced in American courts. British libel tourism – where foreign plaintiffs weaponized UK courts to silence American journalists and authors – died the day that law passed. GRANITE applies the same logic to the internet era, where the foreign regulatory ambition is far more systematic and the targets include ordinary Americans who post, share, and speak freely online.
Every state that passes a GRANITE shield shrinks the foreign censorship machine. The EU and UK can write all the rules they want in Brussels and London – they just won't be able to use American courts to enforce them. Beaulier's session opens January 6. The only question is how many other states will be standing with New Hampshire when the gavel falls.
Sources:
- Dan Frieth, "New Hampshire GRANITE Act Would Shield Protected Speech From Foreign Enforcement," Reclaim the Net, September 3, 2026.
- Preston Byrne, "America Strikes Back Against Foreign Censors With the Rulli GRANITE Act, HR 10174," prestonbyrne.com, August 28, 2026.
- Preston Byrne, "Rep. Warren Davidson Introduces the HOMEFRONT Act," prestonbyrne.com, September 8, 2026.
- "Ofcom Fines 4chan £520K; Platform Responds With Hamster," Reclaim the Net, March 19, 2026.
- "Right to Censor: Why the U.S. Needs to Get a Handle on Foreign Censorship of Protected Speech," American Greatness, September 2, 2026.
- "Foreign Censorship Threat: How the EU's Digital Services Act Compels Global Censorship," House Judiciary Committee, July 25, 2025.
- "Wyoming Bill Seeks to Stop Foreign Censorship," Wyoming News, February 5, 2026.
