Marco Rubio just banned the EU official who tried to silence Elon Musk from entering the United States.
Now a British government agency is going further – threatening an American website with $25 million in fines for refusing to let London regulate what Americans say on American soil.
And a small state with a big backbone just told them exactly where to go.
How the UK Online Safety Act Targets American Websites
Ofcom is the British government’s internet regulator.
It enforces something called the Online Safety Act – a 2023 British law that forces platforms to install age-verification filters, restrict content about mental health and self-harm, and block anything regulators decide is harmful to children.
The law carries fines up to £18 million or 10% of a company’s global annual revenue.
Here’s the part that should make every American’s blood boil.
Ofcom decided that any website with British users – regardless of where it operates – falls under British law.
American website 4chan is a Delaware LLC.
No British offices. No British employees. No British servers.
Ofcom doesn’t care.
Because roughly 7% of 4chan’s traffic came from UK IP addresses, Ofcom declared it a regulated British service and started issuing demands, fines, and daily penalty notices – all sent by email to American addresses.
4chan’s lawyer, Preston Byrne, told them their correspondence made excellent bedding for his pet hamster.
Ofcom fined them anyway – £20,000 initially, then daily penalties, then a second major enforcement action in February 2026 targeting age-verification failures under sections 9, 10, and 12 of the Online Safety Act.
The total potential exposure: $25 million or 10% of worldwide revenue.
When 4chan sued Ofcom in US federal court, Ofcom invoked sovereign immunity – claiming the right to fine Americans for American speech while hiding behind a legal shield that blocks Americans from fighting back in their own courts.
The GRANITE Act Gives Americans the Right to Sue Foreign Censors
Wyoming state Rep. Daniel Singh introduced House Bill 70 – the Guaranteeing Rights Against Novel International Tyranny and Extortion Act.
The GRANITE Act.
It passed the Wyoming House 46-12 on February 23rd.
The bill does three things Britain and Brussels didn’t expect from a state most of them can’t find on a map.
First, it strips foreign governments of sovereign immunity in Wyoming courts when they try to enforce censorship orders against Americans.
Second, it creates a private right of action – meaning individual Americans can sue foreign regulators directly, with minimum damages of $1 million per violation or 10% of the defendant’s US-related revenue, whichever is greater.
Third, it bars Wyoming courts from recognizing any foreign judgment that punishes speech the First Amendment protects.
Byrne called it potentially “the single greatest victory for global free speech in 30 years.”
Jim Jordan confirmed in February that Congress is looking at a federal version.
The State Department confirmed the same week that federal legislation is coming – one that would permanently block foreign censorship of American citizens.
Ofcom Is Coming for More Than One American Website
The collateral damage is already piling up.
Britain’s ICO – a separate British regulator – hit Reddit with a £14.47 million fine in February 2026 over how it handled children’s data.
Wikipedia nearly got designated a “Category 1” high-risk platform – meaning government-mandated identity verification for every editor who contributes to it.
The EU already fined Musk’s X a staggering €120 million under its own Digital Services Act.
When Musk scheduled a 2024 interview with Trump, Breton – the EU’s top tech regulator – personally warned Musk his platform could face penalties for broadcasting it.
Rubio responded by banning Breton from entering the United States.
“For far too long,” Rubio said, “ideologues in Europe have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose.”
VPN downloads exploded to the top of the UK App Store the day age checks kicked in.
Over 500,000 British citizens signed a petition demanding repeal.
The filter doesn’t catch what it was designed to catch.
It catches everything that makes bureaucrats uncomfortable.
Washington Needs to Finish What Wyoming Started
Britain and the EU designed these laws knowing large platforms like Google and Meta could absorb the compliance costs.
Small platforms – the ones that can’t afford full legal and compliance teams – get crushed.
That’s not an accident.
These laws exploded in enforcement right as Trump returned to power and the American right started winning the online debate.
Rubio called it the “global censorship-industrial complex.”
He’s right.
The GRANITE Act changes the math.
Right now, foreign regulators can impose unlimited fines on American companies while hiding behind sovereign immunity – all cost, no consequence.
The moment those regulators face $1 million minimum judgments every time they send a censorship letter to an American website, the calculation changes.
Wyoming fired the first shot.
Congress needs to finish the job.
Sources:
- Daniel Lü, “Britain Is Trying To Censor Americans… But Washington Is Fighting Back,” The Daily Sceptic via ZeroHedge, March 7, 2026.
- Jacob R. Swartz, “How Americans Are Fighting a British Censorship Invasion,” Reason, January 30, 2026.
- Noah Zahn, “Wyoming Bill Seeks to Stop Foreign Censorship,” Wyoming Tribune Eagle, February 2026.
- “What Congress Can Learn From the GRANITE Act,” R Street Institute, March 2026.
- “Secretary Rubio Imposes Visa Restrictions on European Censorship Figures,” US State Department / CNBC, December 24, 2025.
