Picture this: A high-ranking U.S. diplomat lands in London, skips the fish and chips, and instead delivers a transatlantic thunderbolt straight to the heart of Whitehall. Sarah Rogers, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, didn't mince words, or State Department pleasantries. Her message to the UK's speech cops at Ofcom? Back off American free expression, or face the music. It's a red line drawn in the sand of the Atlantic, a reminder that the First Amendment isn't up for export veto by some unelected Eurocrat with a clipboard and a grudge against memes.
Rogers' salvo, aired on GB News this week, zeroed in on the UK's Online Safety Act (OSA), that bloated beast of a law, rammed through in 2023 and fully fangs-out by July 2025. Ostensibly a shield for kids from online goblins, it's morphed into a sledgehammer against adult discourse: criminalising "psychological harm," mandating age-verification that'd make Big Brother blush, and strong-arming platforms to scrub legal content faster than a scandal hits the tabloids. But here's the kicker: Ofcom's been flexing extraterritorially, trying to lasso U.S. companies into compliance on American soil. Rogers called it a "deal-breaker," a "non-starter," and flat-out "outrageous." In diplomat-speak, that's code for: Touch our tweets, and we'll touch your treaties.
This isn't bluster; it's brinkmanship with backbone. Rogers waved the GRANITE Act like a loaded musket, Guaranteeing Rights Against Novel International Tyranny & Extortion, already bubbling in Wyoming's legislature and eyeing federal ink. The bill? It'd yank foreign governments' sovereign immunity if they meddle in U.S. speech, dragging them into Yankee courtrooms where juries, not judges, decide the day's absurdities. No more hiding behind diplomatic skirts while you throttle American voices. And Rogers didn't stop at threats: She skewered the UK's slide into speech dystopia, arrests for tweets, probes for prayers, grannies grilled over gender gripes. "When you don't rigorously defend that right, even when it's inconvenient," she warned, "you end up in these absurd scenarios where you have comedians arrested for tweets." Spot on. The Magna Carta's birthplace, now jailing jokes? It's less Orwell, more Yes, Prime Minister gone grim.
From this free-speech fortress across the pond, Rogers lobbed a history lesson with a side of shade: As America gears up for its 250th birthday bash in 2026, we'll toast the very liberties Britain birthed — Magna Carta, common law, the works — then exported via rebellion. "Adhere to disciplines like the ones encoded in the First Amendment," she urged. Oof. The colonists who Boston Tea Partied over stamps and searches would chuckle, or weep, at their old overlords now policing pixels from afar. The OSA, Rogers nailed it, "imposes on the whole world, not just Britain, and imposes on adults, not just kids." Noble intent? Sure. But execution? A global gag order dressed as guardianship, ripe for abuse by the very elites it claims to check.
And lurking in this transatlantic tussle? The latest broadside against free speech's loudest megaphone: Elon Musk and X. On December 5, the European Commission, Ofcom's continental kin in the censorship cartel, slapped X with a €120 million ($140 million) fine for "breaching" the Digital Services Act (DSA), the EU's own Online Safety wannabe. The charges? A trifecta of technocratic nitpicks: "Deceptive" blue checkmarks (you know, the verification system that keeps bots at bay), opaque ad libraries (transparency X has championed elsewhere), and stingy data access for "researchers" (code for activist academics itching to algorithmically audit dissent). It's not just a wallet whack; it's a warning shot: Comply with our speech codes, or pay up — and keep paying.
Musk fired back like a Falcon 9: "You love censorship more than life itself. Just admit it." He's not wrong. The DSA, enforced since 2024, mirrors the OSA's mission creep: "Protect" users from "harmful" content, but stretch "harm" to encompass anything from election scepticism to immigration hot takes. X, under Musk, has been DSA's favourite piñata — fined for "illegal content" during the 2024 UK riots (where it allegedly "fuelled hatred," per Amnesty's algorithmic autopsy), probed for child safety lapses (despite Musk's zero-tolerance purges), and now this transparency tango. Back in August, X outright accused the UK of "censorship" via the OSA, warning it "seriously infring[es]" free speech by forcing platforms to preemptively police "legal but harmful" posts — a vagueness that chills expression like a London fog. Musk's X has hidden Gaza atrocity videos in the UK under OSA pressure, throttled riot footage to dodge "hate speech" tags, and even flirted with age-ID mandates that Musk dubs a "Trojan Horse for state censorship."
This assault isn't isolated, it's the vanguard of a Western war on words. The EU's DSA fine? Timed suspiciously post-Trump's return, when Musk's "America First" pivot threatens the transatlantic censorship compact. Ofcom's extraterritorial jabs at U.S. platforms? A Brexit backlash, exporting Empire 2.0 via regulatory fiat. Musk's litany of gripes, from UK "police state" stabbings to two-tier arrests for tweets, paints a picture of tyrannical overreach: Comedians cuffed for ball-kicking quips, while grooming gang probes gather dust. X surged to the UK's top news app in June, devouring BBC scraps as citizens flee legacy lies for unfiltered feeds, prompting regulators to cry "disinfo" and crank the screws. Even jury trials are on the chopping block for speech cases, Rogers noted, stripping nullification's safeguard against "absurd" edicts.
The tyrants, Musk's term fits like a glove, aren't subtle. USAID, that do-gooder facade, funnelled cash to DSA/OSA enablers, scripting Biden-era "digital literacy" as code for legacy-media monopoly. Romania's TikTok suspension? A censorship dry run. Vance's face-off with Starmer? A VP-elect eviscerating UK jailing for posts. It's a playbook: Fund the NGOs, fine the platforms, jail the posters, then gaslight as "safety."
Rogers' stand, and Musk's defiance, aren't just salvos; they're sirens. Free speech isn't a luxury; it's liberty's load-bearing wall. Let it crumble in London or Brussels, and the echo reaches D.C. The colonists didn't dump tea for this. As America toasts 250 years of "no taxation without representation," we'll add: No regulation without ratification. Britain, blink first. Elon, keep tweeting.
https://reclaimthenet.org/us-rebukes-uk-over-online-safety-act-threatens-response-with-granite-act