The United Kingdom declared war on American free speech.
British bureaucrats got too big for their britches.
But British censors' war on America's First Amendment could come to a crashing halt.
UK censors came for American websites with threats of arrest
Britain's Online Safety Act became law in 2023 with the promise of protecting children online.
In practice, it handed the UK's communications regulator Ofcom unprecedented power to censor American websites.
The law claims extraterritorial reach over any site with UK users.
Every American social media platform, news site, and forum falls under British control according to Ofcom.
Post something online that the UK doesn't like, and British bureaucrats fine you, demand your records, and threaten you with arrest.
Ofcom selected four US targets to test its new powers: SaSu, Kiwi Farms, Gab, and 4chan.
Ofcom picked the smallest, most politically radioactive platforms in America that couldn't afford lawyers and that mainstream media loves to hate.
Break these isolated platforms first, then force Facebook, X, and every other American site into compliance.
Ofcom threatened fines, arrest, and imprisonment for speech protected by the Constitution.
The UK regulator sent enforcement letters demanding internal documents, risk assessments, and content moderation changes without using any established legal mechanism or US court process.
Emails from London bureaucrats ordering Americans to comply or else.
When 4chan refused to respond, Ofcom announced a £20,000 fine plus £100 per day in escalating penalties.
Attorney Preston Byrne represents all four targeted platforms pro bono.
The censors expected these companies to either comply quietly or disappear.
Byrne sprang a trap.
One lawyer turned the tables on foreign censors
Byrne published Ofcom's threatening letters for the world to see and forwarded the correspondence to Congress.
"My client has broken no laws in the United States," Byrne told Ofcom publicly.
Trump Administration officials condemned the UK's Online Safety Act through multiple public statements.
A $40 billion technology trade deal with Britain got suspended.
Under Secretary of State Sarah Rogers condemned the law on national television, referencing 4chan by name.
The State Department sanctioned five individuals, including two British nationals.
In August 2025, Byrne filed a federal lawsuit against Ofcom in Washington, D.C.
Ofcom had publicly committed to seeing the fine through to the bitter end.
Now they had to defend their actions in American court or back down.
Ofcom escalated.
Their 38-page response claimed UK law superseded the First Amendment while simultaneously invoking the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act to shield themselves from US courts.
American law doesn't protect Americans, but it absolutely protects Britain when threatening Americans — that's the UK's position.
Byrne realized nobody had written the legislative weapon needed to fight back.
He wrote it himself in five days.
The GRANITE Act — "Guaranteeing Rights Against Novel International Tyranny and Extortion" — strips foreign censors of sovereign immunity protections and creates a private right of action allowing Americans to sue those foreign states, agencies, and individual staffers for massive damages.
"If we get corresponding federal action, this law could represent the single greatest victory for global free speech in thirty years," Byrne explained.
Wyoming just fired the opening shot
Wyoming Representative Daniel Singh filed the first GRANITE Act in November 2025.
Americans can recover the greater of treble actual damages, $10 million per threat, or three times any threatened fine.
Six threatening letters to 4chan means $60 million recoverable from the UK government.
Meta facing a 10% global revenue threat gets even more brutal — that £16.4 billion fine triples to a $49.2 billion lawsuit against Britain itself.
The UK holds £47 billion in sovereign assets at American banks that can be seized to pay American judgments.
Wyoming Deputy Secretary of State Colin Crossman contacted Byrne in early November with a draft bill.
Sarah Rogers told reporters in December that the House of Representatives had a federal shield bill ready to go.
Senator Eric Schmitt picked the perfect day to announce his version — the same day Brussels went after Elon Musk's X with another massive fine.
New Hampshire filed its own GRANITE Act weeks later.
At least 29 nations have enacted laws similar to Britain's Online Safety Act.
Most are America's allies — the UK, EU countries, Canada, Australia.
The UK was just first to enforce these censorship rules against American citizens.
Ofcom succeeds, and every one of those 29 countries follows.
Your social media posts get judged by Canadian standards, German standards, Australian standards.
The First Amendment stops meaning anything when foreign governments punish you for speech that's legal in America.
The GRANITE Act makes the consequences so catastrophic that foreign censors never threaten Americans again.
Byrne's strategy removes this burden from the White House entirely.
"Trial lawyers would take over that job, freeing the president to move on to other, more important matters," Byrne noted.
Congress needs to pass federal shield legislation immediately.
Strip sovereign immunity for foreign censorship and make the penalties so ruinous that no foreign bureaucrat dares threaten an American citizen over constitutionally protected speech.
A handful of free speech lawyers kept foreign censors at bay for nearly a decade.
Now they're getting legislative reinforcements with the backing of the Trump Administration.
British censors who thought they could wage war on the First Amendment just learned that Americans hit back harder.
Sources:
- Preston Byrne, "Will Congress shield the US from foreign attacks on the First Amendment?" The Spectator, January 22, 2026.
- Wikipedia, "Online Safety Act 2023," accessed January 2026.
- Preston Byrne, "The Ofcom Files, Part 2: IP Blocking the UK is Not Enough," November 2025.
- PPC Land, "US websites sue UK regulator over Online Safety Act enforcement," August 27, 2025.
- Preston Byrne, "The Full Text of the Wyoming GRANITE Act," December 5, 2025.
- Reclaim The Net, "The GRANITE ACT: Wyoming Bill Targets Foreign Censors," November 24, 2025.
