Key Takeaways

In this episode, Marty Bent speaks with Preston Byrne, a U.S.- and UK-qualified attorney representing platforms like 4chan and Kiwi Farms, about the UK’s Online Safety Act and its attempt to exert extraterritorial control over American speech. Byrne explains how regulators such as Ofcom are sending enforcement notices directly to U.S. companies, often by email, demanding compliance with UK speech rules that conflict with the First Amendment. The conversation outlines how this strategy launders censorship through private intermediaries, pressuring risk-averse tech companies to comply even when orders are unenforceable in U.S. courts. Byrne details the ongoing federal litigation challenging improper service and constitutional violations, the role of NGOs in steering regulators toward specific targets, and why small, U.S.-only companies are uniquely positioned to resist. He also introduces the proposed “Granite Act,” a legislative framework designed to strip sovereign immunity from foreign regulators who attempt to censor Americans and to create strong deterrents through civil liability. Zooming out, the discussion contrasts U.S. content-neutral free speech doctrine with the UK’s subjective “offensive” speech standards, warning that unchecked foreign censorship threatens encryption, privacy, and the open internet unless met with coordinated legal, legislative, and cultural resistance.

Best Quotes

“Our rules get to govern what Americans do on American servers. The First Amendment ceases to exist.”

“They are laundering censorship through a third party and conscripting Americans to do it for them.”

“If you want to censor, you should bear the full political cost yourself.”

“The threat and intimidation are the point, not enforcement.”

“Free speech in the UK exists, but not as Americans understand it.”

“This is about redrawing the boundary of the internet in America’s favor.”

Conclusion

The episode frames the UK’s Online Safety Act as more than a domestic policy, it is a test case for whether foreign governments can coerce American platforms into abandoning constitutional protections. Byrne argues that the U.S. response is finally coalescing through lawsuits, state-level shields, and prospective federal legislation that could decisively halt extraterritorial censorship. While the fight is far from over, the momentum described suggests an inflection point, either the U.S. reinforces its constitutional perimeter online, or global speech norms slide toward the most restrictive regimes. The stakes, as emphasized throughout the conversation, are existential for free speech, privacy, and the future architecture of the internet.

Timestamps

0:00 - Intro
0:33 - Censorship regimes
10:54 - Biden vs Trump Administration
15:19 - Improper Service & GDPR Precedent
21:34 - GRANITE Act
27:09 - Bitkey & Obscura
29:30 - British free speech
39:21 - Global Tech Companies & X
42:59 - Unchained & SLNT
45:00 - Bifurcated Internet
52:20 - NGOs
59:57 - Proposed free speech law
1:07:09 - UK sentiments & McCormack
1:17:19 - Pro Bono

Transcript

(00:00) When the UK was trying to censor these targets, the UK was essentially saying, "Our rules get to govern what Americans do on American servers. The First Amendment ceases to exist. We are going to launder that censorship through a third party, and we're going to conscript the American to carry out for us.
(00:15) " The UK's free speech fight is nowhere near over. You go to a tech company, you talk to their highly riskaverse legal team that likes, you know, occasionally going to London for a conference or something like that. And you say, "Hey, we're going to throw you in jail if you don't follow our rules." And guess what? They followed the rules.
(00:34) Preston Burn, it's been too long. Welcome back. >> Hey, great to be here. Great to see you. It's great to see you, too. I mean, we've got a lot to talk about. What What the hell is going on uh in Europe, in the UK with speech? >> Yeah, we've they need to be they need to be put back in their box and uh it's they need to get back back in their box, back in their kennel.
(00:57) Um, and we're Yeah, we're we're we can we can talk about that at length. Yeah. >> Yeah. I guess I I think uh maybe the best jumping off point is uh 4chan in Ofcom. You're >> very intimately uh sort of >> connected with that. You're representing 4chan. For those in the audience who may be unaware of what's happening, why don't we just start there and then we'll get into the broader topic of speech.
(01:25) >> Sure. So I think I think you know as with all Bitcoin stories um you know our story begins on the aisle of YAP but it's I was I've I've been active in cryptocurrency since 2013 mostly as a lawyer for crypto companies. I also had an early enterprise blockchain startup. We forked Ethbach 2 and built really complicated financial services automation things on it and that didn't succeed.
(01:52) Um, so I went back into private practice and one of the first things I did when I went back into private practice because it had been a sort of longtime interest of mine was represent US companies that were focused on free speech and at the time back in 2017 18 um, US companies that had free speech moderation policies were being targeted by the American government, right? And they were being targeted by American service providers.
(02:12) Um, and it wasn't such a big problem. You know, foreign governments weren't weren't quite the problem they are now. Um but what has happened is is that because the United States has this thing right the first amendment which protects speech here and that includes the right to host whatever you want essentially as long as it's legal the right to publish software you know in the terms that you want the right not to be told by the government what kind of software you run or how you choose to run it or who you choose to you know allow to access it. Um there
(02:41) were there were forces both in the American government during the Biden administration and the Obama administration and there are forces outside of the American government in the NGO space and there are of course foreign countries who want to take that away from the United States. And so one of their strategies was to try to achieve via the back door what they couldn't achieve via the front because the US government can't boss around American citizens and tell us what we can and can't say.
(03:04) And the first amendment of course is geographically bounded. It is limited to the United States. So there were a series of legal regimes that have been stood up across the world. One of them in Europe is called the digital services act. One of them in the United Kingdom is called the online safety act. Another one in Australia is also called the online safety act and is substantially very similar to the UK regime.
(03:24) And all of those regimes came online at the beginning of 2025. And the UK was the first out the gate to try to enforce them. So they started sending letters in late February to American companies. The first one was a mental health discussion board called SASU. Second one was a company called Gab, which is a social network.
(03:43) The third one was a discussion board called Qi Farms. And the fourth one was a uh was 4chan, which I think requires no introduction for most people, but it's a it's an image board and it's the source of a lot of internet culture. Completely anarctic. Uh everybody is anonymous on the website. There are no usernames. Um and you know, that's it's it's a totally it's it's not lawless, right? They certainly obey American law, but compared to something like Facebook or or X or Reddit or YouTube or any other mainstream social media platform, there's significantly
(04:12) less content moderation that occurs there. And so the UK targeted these companies and said, "Okay, well, listen, you guys are, you know, the worst of the worst from our perspective. You host speech and conduct that we would prefer uh not exist." And so when their censorship law came online, they started targeting these four companies, tiny tiny tiny companies.
(04:33) I mean, at one point, you know, it's not that way anymore, but at one point 4chan was described accurately as just a bunch of Mac minis running in a closet. Um, and so essentially like that was the infrastructure that that ran the site. and they to prove the principle that they could take on what the UK and its political class regarded as the worst actors on the internet and it could make them obey the UK's rules.
(04:58) And so these companies were targeted one by one. I was put in touch because they've been active in the free speech internet space for nearly 10 years uh with these companies one by one. And uh you know the clients made the decision each one of them one at a time right they said listen we believe that the principle here is the the idea that American civil rights on the internet require defending uh is so important that we cannot give an inch to the United Kingdom on this front.
(05:28) Um and you know certainly I'm sympathetic right to foreign governments. You know foreign countries have their own rules. They have their own ways of doing things. The world is not the United States. But the thing that distinguishes these four targets from, you know, a company like an X or a Facebook or a Google is that they have absolutely no operational footprint outside of the United States.
(05:45) And so when the UK was trying to censor these targets, as it continues to do to this day, um the UK was essentially saying our rules, which are expressed to be applicable outside of the jurisdiction, they, you know, there's a language in the statute which says this is extr territorially applicable outside of the UK.
(06:03) Our rules get to govern what Americans do on American servers and you have to answer to us and the principle of that if we concede it right the first amendment ceases to exist effectively as as as something which exists online and so these four clients decided to fight back 4chan and Kiwi Farms in particular decided to bring a lawsuit against Ofcom in the District of Columbia uh which which we brought in August and also what we've been doing in parallel to that is we've been advancing both you communication with the executive branch.
(06:33) We've been ensuring that the executive branch knows what's going on, that they receive copies of these censorship notices. Obviously, we have no visibility into what the executive branch chooses to do and how it chooses to do it. Um, but we have been, you know, serving as a source of information for them.
(06:47) We've been also ensuring that these censorship notices get presented to Congress. We now know as a matter of public record that Congress is considering introducing a foreign censorship statute. Uh, we don't know what's in it. Uh and we ourselves, you know, the legal team for 4chan and Kiwi Farms developed uh in coordination with a fellow named Colin Crossman who's the deputy secretary of state for the state of Wyoming uh a draft bill called the Granite Act.
(07:13) GR is like the rock uh which stands for guaranteeing rights against novel international tyranny and extortion. And what Granite does is it provides a censorship law which would effectively blunt any further attempts to enter the United States by one of these foreign countries. Um, you know, we know the federal government has seen a copy of that law.
(07:30) We don't know whether they're going to choose to follow the form of that law themselves in any legislative reform that they're going to uh proceed with in the new year. Um, but essentially it's been a multiffront. You know, this year has been it started out as just, you know, one guy, you know, parrying foreign censorship demands and the whole process has snowballed to the point where now we're seeing executive action on this.
(07:53) We have confirmation from members of Congress. um you know including Senator Eric Schmidt that uh their own legislative solutions will be forthcoming. We have our shield bill proceeding in Wyoming. Uh we have strategic litigation being waged by ourselves uh and also by other entities like Net Choice.
(08:12) You know they they're not part of the effort but they have been fighting UK online safety act style laws in accordance with their mandate. Uh and recently just this week in fact it's today's what today's the 19th of December. So on the 15th they got an age verification mandate which is very similar to the OSA struck down by a federal judge in Louisiana.
(08:32) Then on the 17th so two days ago they had another rule which was a content mandate in the state of Arkansas very similar to the UK online safety act that was preliminarily enjoined. So they got an injunction a temporary injunction uh in that case which means it's very likely that they're going to get a permanent injunction and that law will be struck down.
(08:50) So what we've seen is you know the the foreign governments have been pushing pushing pushing this content this way of looking at the internet and saying you know what the internet should not be a free place it should be a place which is regulated and tightly controlled by us and not in accordance with the first amendment but by our rules and what's happened is there's been a a response across the board legislation litigation and executive action uh and also education right letting the American bar know and letting the American and populists know
(09:19) uh what's going on overseas, how they're trying to enter the United States, the manner in which they're doing it, and we're starting to really reach some uh some inflection points where that that process now effectively is moving under its own power. Uh whereas a year ago really there were only a handful of people pushing.
(09:35) Um so if I, you know, if I drop dead of a heart attack tomorrow, um this is whatever is going to happen is still going to happen, which is great because it means that, you know, that my my efforts representing these four clients uh will not have been in vain. Um, but it's because now the whole American system is waking up and a a legal response is is beginning to form.
(09:53) So that's that's the view from 30,000 feet is that the foreign sensors coordinated a series of and this has been planned for years, many many years. The first call I had with the UK on the topic of the online safety act was in 2023 uh in relation to a US company uh free speechoriented social media company and a senior civil servant at the home office said listen how are you planning to implement the online safety act and I responded to him that you know we're not uh planning to implement the online safety act and if you want to censor my
(10:23) client word for word essentially I said you're going to have to land ground troops on the east coast and seize their servers by force and I don't to be blunt I don't think the UK is prepared to do that at at the present time. Um, but essentially, yeah, that's that's it's been a long long long fight and finally we're starting to see traction at the federal level in state legislatores.
(10:43) And I'm very optimistic that uh over the course of the next year, we're going to see meaningful legislative developments uh which will essentially redraw the rules of the internet in America's favor. >> Well, first off, thank you for your service. It's uh incredibly important work because it seems existential.
(11:00) So is the UK and you know I mean Europe with their online safety act are are they essentially assuming that the US government should cooperate with them? And >> I think yeah I think they're assuming that the US government uh doesn't have the capacity to respond to them. I don't think they're assuming that there will be cooperation if the Biden administration had continued or if we were under a Harris administration.
(11:24) I think you would see uh if not active cooperation then you'd certainly see willful blindness to their activities and you wouldn't see any legislative or executive momentum to stop it. Um as was indeed the case under the Biden administration. They were serving notices. They were giving you reciprocal treatment to notices that the Germans were serving on American citizens under the German censorship law.
(11:45) Something called the network enforcement act or the netg. And so they you know they they largely ignored this and we told them listen this violates the first amendment. What are you doing? and they ignored our correspondence. Um, we told the Trump administration about this, right? And the notices, we didn't, you know, hear anything back, but the notices from the German government against this particular target immediately stopped being served.
(12:05) Um, so, you know, that that's the difference in in the change at the top. The US government certainly, you know, it it can't tell these countries what to do, but it has the option to decide whether it's going to resist. And, uh, I think under a Biden administration, it would not have resisted at all.
(12:22) I think it would have just kind of let them roll over Americans rights because you know it serves their political interests and their political objectives to do so. Um you know there there are forces in the US government on both parties who are very much not in favor of free speech on the internet as the first amendment understands that term.
(12:39) Um so so yeah that's it does yeah I think that's the answer to that question. I'm not sure if it it satisfactorily answers that but >> no it does. And this goes far beyond just free speech too because I know in a lot of these um these acts from UK and European Union, the European Parliament more broadly, they want to basically kill encryption too and end encryption uh introduce these back doors.
(13:03) So any app that is allowing their users to use and then encryption to communicate with each other. And so I mean this is not only an attack on free speech but also a surveillance mechanism on top of it >> and it's pretty egregious. >> Yeah. And I mean I think we've had those we've had the encryption wars here in the United States for 30 40 years as well. Right.
(13:27) There have been attempts to break encryption at various times by various administrations. And there are always people I guarantee you there are people within the current Trump administration who aren't fans of encryption. But ultimately we have a system. That system has constitutional guardrails. And the job of the first amendment lawyer is to enforce those guardrails whenever possible, as robustly as possible, as quickly as possible to prevent encroachment on Americans individual rights.
(13:53) And so from, you know, from our point of view, it's something which is just so important that you you you have to get you have to get involved immediately. You have to stop it immediately. And I don't think the UK was expecting I I don't think they're they're used to that in their own country. I think what they're used to is lengthy judicial review procedures.
(14:10) Those judicial review procedures take forever to resolve. It results in minor modifications to the scheme. They're not used to the idea of Americans riding into battle and getting a TTRO, a temporary restraining order to tell the, you know, a federal a random federal judge telling the entire federal government in all 50 states, guess what? You can't do this on a nationwide basis anymore.
(14:29) That's not something that they're accustomed to because the judicial system doesn't have the power to do it. Um so I I think it was it's what what we've seen is a clash of systems, a clash of cultures, um legal cultures and uh you know foreign governments that really didn't understand that just because for example with the GDPR with the data protection the European data protection rule and just because all of America rolled over when they decided to roll that out on a global basis didn't also mean that we would roll over uh when they decided to
(14:58) go after the first amendment on a global basis. I think they're qualitatively different rules and so they uh you know they should they should have expected a qualitatively different response. Um but their experience dealing with the Americans and internet you know European internet regulation before taught them that that wasn't something that we were going to do and I think that that was a a mistake.
(15:19) >> Yeah. So, bringing this back to uh 4chan and Kiwi, you guys sued >> in DC federal court on August 28th alleging Ofcom's orders do not bind them in the United States, that the orders were not properly served. Interesting to learn more about how they were served, that any attempt by US court to enforce them would violate the first, fourth, and fifth amendments.
(15:40) So, let's talk about how they were not properly served >> and and then from there, what's happened since August 28th? What has the back and forth been like if there has been any? >> Sure. So, we filed uh Offcom announced that they were going to find 4chan 20,000 sterling on uh August the 14 August 13th or 14th.
(16:00) 2 days later uh Kiwi and 4chan through a press release that my law firm issued uh announced their intention to file suit in DC. Uh we then did file suit in DC on the 28th. And you know when you've got an entity on the other side which is uh potentially right so they're arguing that they're a sovereign instrumentality in the United Kingdom which presents some interesting problems from a litigation standpoint because they may benefit from sovereign immunity.
(16:26) Now that's a live issue in the case. I'm not not going to go into that in too much depth because we've yet to file our opposition and they're going to file their reply. Um, but the the issue there, right, from our perspective is that they sent these notices by email to the United States. They just said, "Hey, here's an email. You must do this.
(16:44) " And we want confirmation, as is the established legal position here in the United States time and time and time again, that if you want to get an American to do something, you cannot just send them a letter from overseas. You have to serve them with legal process. That legal process has to comport with American due process requirements.
(17:02) and generally speaking also has to comport with the requirements under an applicable international treaty whether it be the H service convention or the mutual legal assistance treaty procedure between the two countries or letters rogatory between two courts and so none of that was used. It was just sent by email. So we are highly confident that these orders if Ofcom came over here and tried to say hey 4chan and Kiwi Farms are now obliged to follow our instructions a US court would say with Ofcom as the plaintiff and rather than with us as the
(17:31) plaintiffs um that they would say listen no that you this order was not validly served. Um so there are two questions we've asked the court to resolve. The first one is were the orders validly served and if the orders were validly served right then we have to answer the second question. We don't think they were.
(17:48) So at that point our, you know, we're going to be asking the court, listen, the order wasn't validly served. So from our perspective, the second question about whether it's constitutional to enforce here is is moot, right? Effectively, because the case should end because we should just say, listen, the order wasn't validly served.
(18:03) There's there's no ripeness on the second question and the case ends. Um, and what we're that's really all we're asking for. We're not asking for damages. We're not asking for, you know, injunctions, various other things. We're just asking for confirmation as as a practical matter. We're asking for confirmation these orders weren't validly served which would then confirm the position that my clients aren't obliged uh to follow them.
(18:24) Now, in response to that, obviously very legal correct legally correct position, uh, AFCOM responded by alleging that they are completely immune from suit, right? So, there's no there's there's there's no way that we can sue them because there's they're saying that they're a sovereign instrumentality of the United Kingdom.
(18:41) And the way that works is we have a law called the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. And the foreign sovereign immunities act says that subject to certain limited exceptions if an entity is a sovereign entity or in conducting sovereign things engaged in sovereign activity it is immune from suit in American courts. And that means that even though we're not asking for financial damages or anything else if it's a threshold issue it's a jurisdictional issue.
(19:06) So if Ofcom is a sovereign instrumentality and if Ofcom is engaged in sovereign conduct that is not, you know, subject to one of the exclusions under the FSIA, then what happens is the case is dismissed, right? It goes away forever. And so, you know, that's they're entitled to do that. But, you know, part of the reason we brought the suit was to demonstrate to legislators in Washington that law reform was needed in order to head this off because this is the expected response if an American goes to court and seeks an order from a US court. Not
(19:35) seeking very much, right? Just confirmation. Listen, we just want the court to confirm uh that this order wasn't validly served. Can you please tell us that that a sovereign on the other end of that lawsuit is going to turn around and seek to have the case dismissed uh and is going to use every legal e available to avoid a US court from reaching that determination.
(19:55) And so we've also done in parallel to this is we proposed a law the granite act that I referred to earlier which would take sovereign immunity away from these foreign sovereigns if they attempt to get into the United States and push around American citizens. And it would also create a civil cause of action that allows an American citizen to to sue that entity and obtain financial damages against them.
(20:16) So, you know, we the case is the case. We have the issues. They've made their arguments. We're in the process of making ours. They're going to make some more arguments still after that. Um, but one of the purposes of bringing the lawsuit was to demonstrate to Washington, which we have, I'm very confident we have done, and I'm very confident the message has been heard, that American law currently disadvantages the American defender and massively advantages the foreign attacker.
(20:40) Because if the foreign attacker comes in, you have this enormous threshold issue to get over of sovereign immunity. And that that limitation is self-imposed. It's not imposed by foreign law. It's imposed by American domestic law. And so that's one of the reasons we brought the suit is to ensure that there's a record, a comprehensive documentary record showing that this is the case and to uh and to tell Washington, listen, this is the problem and this is exactly where you need to get involved and apply a fix because ultimately if it's federal
(21:07) legislation, you can pass all the state legislation you want. Um as we are indeed trying to do with the Wyoming credit act, but the fix has to be at the federal level. And uh and we you know I'm very very very confident that a fix along I haven't seen the federal bill. I do know that one is being worked on uh because it's public information that one is being worked on.
(21:27) But I'm very confident that the federal government is uh is going to be uh going to be commencing a legislative response to this problem in due course. >> Something along the lines of the Granite Act. >> So ideally right it's going to be along the lines of the Granite Act. The federal government has definitely seen the Granite Act, including its most recent iterations, which are which are currently non-public, but um but yeah, we'll see what they do.
(21:50) I'm optimistic that we're going to see some action in the new year. Um but it really that's I don't have a a ton of visibility into that process because that's above I'm a solo practitioner, you know, working working nights and weekends from my house. Um and so drafting federal legislation is a little bit above my pay grade.
(22:06) >> Yeah. But if it is aligned with what you presented in the granite your proposal for the granite act, you describe it as mutually assured destruction, a system of mutually destruction. >> Yeah. So if if they follow So what the granite act does is it has really two pieces, a shield and a sword. So the shield states that a uh an entity operating in the United States, a foreign order which is served on that entity which would if served by an American government entity violate their constitutional rights is not enforceable
(22:38) here, right? Which is already the position. But if you set it out in a statute and make it very clear, instead of responding to a foreign sensor with a 20-page memo, what you do is you which we have done, right? What you do is you respond to the foreign sensor by saying, "Here's the statute. Go away.
(22:52) " Right? So please stop sending us stupid letters. Um the letters are stupid now, right? To be clear, but but it's a little more complicated to to exhibit its stupidity as it would than it would be uh if we had a statute which which set out the position very clearly. The second thing it does on the shield side is it prevents any US government agency from cooperating or serving or giving effect to those notices.
(23:15) Um and uh it basically says that a US state actor can't cooperate with you like the Biden administration did. It says you can't give effect to an order and if you do give effect to that order, Zoro, will you stop it? My dog is whimpering at the bottom of the stairs um in the background. So, so, so it says that if you do cooperate with that notice, then what will happen is uh you know there's a civil cause of action against the government agency that did it.
(23:37) So, that'll prevent any cooperation from the DOJ or the Department of State or something like that. It also creates a sword, right? I call it a turbo laser, a thermonuclear civil cause of action in podcasts and things like that. Uh, and what that does is it allows the American to counter sue or sue because it's not, you know, it's a separate proceeding.
(23:55) So, it allows an American to sue a European sensor for three times the amount of the threatened fine in an American court and it takes sovereign immunity away from that European sensor uh with respect to uh, you know, with respect to that claim. So essentially if you send a letter to an American citizen under this regime, the American citizen on receiving the letter will know that letter is not going to be in whatever that threat that letter contains, it's not going to be enforceable in the United States. And moreover, because
(24:24) they receive the letter, they now have a civil cause of action where they can bring it against the sovereign entity, the agency, and anyone working for the agency jointly and severally. uh and they can seek to make them liable for damages in an American court and those damages would be then recoverable in principle against sovereign assets custody American banks.
(24:44) So all told it's not this is not designed to create a lucrative practice suing foreign governments in American courts. It is designed to deter foreign notices from ever being sent in the first place because they know that firstly they're never going to get those orders enforced here and secondly that if they attempt to enforce them at all um or even threaten them, right? The the political con they will have to pay a very steep political price for that which is not the case now.
(25:07) Right now they can send as many letters as they want. It costs them nothing. The response is in fact very expensive from the American side of the equation because you have to get highly specialized lawyers willing to work for free for small targets running you know federal litigation uh in our federal courts uh you know without compensation right so that's not a a sustainable or scalable way to defend uh the American constitutional perimeter if however you turn around and you say okay well this is now catnip for uh plaintiff's council
(25:37) and it's really worthwhile and you can do the work on contingency and there's a big pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. You're going to have lawyers, you know, queuing up around the block to defend American civil rights and it's going to communicate to these foreign governments that even if right, for whatever reason they decide it's worth their while to send these notices into the US, um they're not going to get anything, right? They're not going to be able to enforce them here.
(25:59) So, it's it's designed to redraw the boundary, tell foreign governments, you know, within this red line, right? That's America's turf. Don't cross it. If you have a a question or a query and you're really interested in knowing whether the communication you're sending to an American citizen violates their first amendment rights, that's not the American citizens problem anymore.
(26:17) It's your problem. Uh which is exactly how it should be. So if the federal government copies that approach in any meaningful way, I think that the foreign censorship problem will end largely and I think it will end more or less overnight. Um and then we will have a a new operating system, legal operating system for the internet.
(26:35) Um, and it'll be really interesting to see what happens over the course of the next 30 years with a law like that on the books. So that that's the objective is basically to prevent this from happening anymore because it's the threat. It's the intimidation. It's not necessarily the enforcement because offcom can enforce their orders here.
(26:50) We know that. Offcom knows it. The UK knows it. The US government knows it. Everybody knows it. But what happens is you go to a a tech company, you talk to their highly riskaverse legal team that likes, you know, occasionally going to London for a conference or something like that, and you say, "Hey, we're going to throw you in jail if you don't follow our rules.
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(29:25) Turn on Obscura. Surf the web privately. Obscura.net. Use the code TFTC for 25% off. I think one of the more important things to really dig into here is this is all rooted in poor free speech laws in the countries that are um bringing these lawsuits against American companies. I think you're particularly well suited to critique uh British and the the speech laws in the UK because you practiced over there.
(29:54) You got um you you know that that system very well. And I think this is something you've been highlighting recently um is the fact that the UK free speech framework is broken beyond repair. And so I think diving into what the landscape of free speech, if it even exists in the UK, looks like today, obviously ton of headlines over the last year with British citizens going and getting put in prison for social media posts um and other things.
(30:24) It seems completely insane to somebody like myself who lives in America and expects Western democracies um to um to respect free speech as much as we do here in the United States. But I think it's becoming clear that free speech is something that is somewhat unique at least in the way that it was written in our constitution is somewhat unique here in the United States.
(30:45) >> Free speech, free speech in the UK, I mean it exists the way they define it, but it doesn't exist the way that Americans define it. There's an old joke about uh an American and a Russian having a drink together at a bar and the American says to the Russians back during the Cold War, you know, America is the such a free country.
(31:02) I can walk right up to the gates of the White House and I can curse out and criticize the president of the United States right in front of the White House and they can't do anything to me. And the Russians says, "Well, we have free speech, too." And the American says, "Really?" He goes, "Yeah, I can walk right down to Red Square, right up to the front gates of the Kremlin, and I can criticize President Reagan all I want.
(31:22) " And And so that that that's the difference is that there's a there's a realm of polit the United Kingdom uh has certain uh qualitative judgments by which the content of assess the content of speech uh can be regarded as sufficiently offensive or insulting or abusive and what what those terms mean is generally defined by the current accepted political and cultural consensus in the government.
(31:48) The United States doesn't have that because our rules focus on making sure that speech rules are contentneutral, right? So you ask what is the the character of the speech, right? Rather than what is the content of the speech before you proceed to the analysis of whether you can regulate it. So in the United States, I can walk up to the White House and I can say, you know, I think, you know, I think President Trump is a dummy, for example.
(32:08) I'm something I'm allowed to say. But what I can't do is threaten him, right? I can't and I'm not going to say what that threat might look like because it's the internet, but I can't threaten the president, right? I can't threaten the cop standing outside the door. But regardless of who is in the White House, it should be possible to assess whether a threat has been made or not.
(32:24) Right? So that's that's something which is objectively verifiable whether a threat has taken place. Now the criticism piece, right, is something where again regardless of who is in the White House, you can change the criticism all you want, but the identity of the target and the content of the speech doesn't change its nature, which is that it's critique or it's its criticism.
(32:44) In the United Kingdom, however, they have rules, particularly on the internet. Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 is a good example where grossly offensive speech is something which the state is permitted to intervene on. That is inherently a subjective judgment, whether something is grossly offensive or not.
(33:01) And if you then go and you ask a British judge, right, well, what's where's the line between offensive and grossly offensive? they kind of shrug and they say, "Well, you know, it it sounds grossly offensive to me because, you know, anyone who heard that statement would would doubtlessly be offended by it when they heard it." And so that's been used that stand in other cases, right? In in the real world, you have abusive, threatening or insulting words of behavior, right? And abusive, threatening, and insulting.
(33:26) Um those are also terms which are inherently subjective, right? Abusive or insulting particularly. And you've seen cases where someone burned a Quran outside of the Turkish embassy in London, right? There was a very specific political act derived from, you know, Turkey has a long history of a complicated relationship between secularism on which the state was founded and more religiously motivated politics, which is currently running the state.
(33:50) And so it was an inherently political act going to the embassy and burning the Quran saying, "Listen, I disagree with the involvement of religion in Turkish national politics." So that guy Amed Koskin was his name. He was arrested, right? And he was tried and convicted, I believe, or no, he was tried and acquitted uh of uh of a public order offense.
(34:12) But now the crown is appealing, right? They said, "Well, actually, no, we think that was sufficiently uh abusive and insulting uh because anyone, you know, would have been and we think the judge the judge wrongly decided this case." And in the United States, that would fall squarely within protectant speech. Was anyone being threatened? No.
(34:26) Right. Was he was he threatening to cause him any physical harm to anybody? No. What was it his Iran that he was burning? Yes. So regardless of the subjective perception of offense or abuse or insult being felt by anyone who was watching it in the United States, we'd say, "Well, that was still a protected act of expression, right? Because it's not within the categories of speech we seek to control under our constitutional system, uh, which look at the content of the speech, which is necessary inquiry if you're asking,
(34:53) well, is someone offended by the speech?" inherently what you're doing there is you're looking into the content of the conduct, the the substance of the idea that's being communicated and you're punishing the person for the substance, right, rather than the nature of the speech itself. And so they don't really have our doctrine there.
(35:09) And the UK online safety act requires American companies to remove speech which is illegal there which effectively ports their domestic speech regime as a internet regulatory regime which obliges Americans to remove speech which is illegal in the UK but perfectly legal in the United States. uh and that is you know one of the you know incidentally we haven't even in the 4chan case we haven't even reached that point in the analysis right because they haven't rolled out and started seeking to enforce those content moderation rules
(35:39) what they sought to do was to compel 4chan to produce a risk assessment an audit an internal audit essentially where they were going to write a document where they confessed their sins said how they complied with the rules and said how they were going to uh not said how they not weren't complying with the rules and how they intended to come into compliance and We looked at that and we said, "Sorry, that's compelled speech under the first amendment.
(36:00) We don't have to explain our content moderation decisions to you." And threatening us by saying that, you know, if you don't produce this report confessing your sins, well, that's violates the fifth amendment. And moreover, right, you're asking for an internal document that we may or may not have, you know, may or may not have produced and you're doing it without a judicial warrant.
(36:16) That violates the fourth amendment, right? So, it's first, fourth, fifth amendment. We have cases on all of these things that tell us that here in the US um the conduct of refusing a foreign sensors order uh to to testify against yourself, admit your sins and uh you know explain your content moderation practices violates our constitution at multiple points.
(36:37) And we just decided, okay, well, we can either sit here and wait and ignore the notices or we can punch them on the nose, right? and we can say, "Okay, we're going to explain to the entire American bar, right, that the case has been viewed tens of thousands of times the documents on that case." Um, so we can explain to the entire American bar.
(36:54) We can explain to Washington DC. we can explain to you and we can explain to anyone else who might be interested all in one in one clean sweep exactly what you're asking exactly why we object and exactly you know how what kind of law reform is needed in order to prevent this from happening again through the simple act of filing a lawsuit which is published in in the District of Columbia which a lot of lawyers are going to read um and that's that's part another part of the reason why we did it right so it's we we have you know the the hurdles
(37:24) that we have to get over on the sovereign immunity point I'm not going to beat around the bush. They are substantial. Um, you know, we do have arguments. We will be making them. Um, but it is the sovereign immunities defense that they raised is is a formidable one. Um, our point that we've been making to Washington is that when you have a coordinated global effort from 31 different sovereigns, 30 different countries, the member states of the EU, the United Kingdom, Australia, and there are some smaller entities that have similar rules that
(37:51) might want to try the same thing. New Zealand and Singapore in particular uh and that are purporting to have extr territorial effect in the United States when you that is the problem that you face. It is not sufficient to be sitting here and saying okay we're going to tie Americans hands behind their back with our own rules and sovereign immunity defenses and that's something which is going to be sustainable in the long run.
(38:12) We need some major major law reform changes in order to arrest this conduct and prevent it from becoming commonplace uh for companies large and small. And so, you know, the lawsuit was really designed to illustrate the nature of that problem. We think we've done that very successfully. We know for a fact that the lawsuit has been noticed at the very highest levels of American government.
(38:32) I'm not going to say where or among whom. Um, but we think we made our point. Uh, and we think we've made it very well. And of course, we're going to assert our claims and defenses, make our arguments, and all the rest of it. But the the name of the game here has always been for years now, it has always been we need to change the structure of American law in order to prevent this sort of thing from happening again.
(38:51) And I think you know where we are now. I I sit at this very strange point where not a lot of lawyers or not a lot of people have been involved but there is a process and it is very advanced. So, it sounds a little crazy when you when you say I'm really optimistic that something's going to happen, but I am extremely optimistic that something's going to happen on this front and I think it's probably going to happen in Q1 uh of 2026, maybe Q2 uh at the latest.
(39:16) So, it's um so yeah, that that's where we are if that uh is in terms of the summary. Yeah. >> Yeah. Well, you mentioned companies both large and small, and earlier you mentioned the fact that 4chan was described as their servers being a bunch of Mac minis connected to each other in a in a closet. Uh, obviously, uh, Elon and X have been in the news in recent months because the European Parliament, I don't know if they sued them or they're simply >> finding them.
(39:43) Yeah, the commission, the European Commission, which is the uh executive branch agency of the European Union, just issued a a fine for violating their various rules. Um, and that completely violates the First Amendment. It's not enforceable here. >> So, there's no since X has business operations around the world, maybe servers and other places, it doesn't it's still the First Amendment still protects them.
(40:03) >> It protects them in the United States. Um, and it certainly doesn't protect them in the EU, right? But the the issue with the global companies that they have is they so my clients I have a very easy job right they're entirely US-based all of their assets are US situs all of their servers are in the United States and so from our point of view when you have that foreign intrusion um it's it's a very simple analysis right it's the the analysis is no thanks we're not doing this you have no power here with a company like Axe or Google or Facebook
(40:34) they have very meaningful footprints outside of the United States so it is somewhat more complicated for them to push back against these demands because there are assets against which a foreign state can enforce uh a judgment or a ruling or a fine or whatever else. Um we think that this should be resolved as a diplomatic matter between the United States and these countries and that they should respect the way that we do things because those are usually branch offices and subsidiaries that don't actually serve and operate the app itself. I know
(41:02) in Ex's case they actually the the contractual counterparty is an Irish entity um which which has and I think they probably also have servers in Ireland and there are tax reasons why they do that. Ireland is a is a tax shelter for a lot of these country companies be for various various reasons that don't don't bear going into here.
(41:19) So their picture is somewhat more complicated. But with the Granite Act, as we've drafted it, um it would actually protect American companies with those foreign operations and subsidiaries, um because it would say, listen, what you're still seeking to do when you're targeting the sub is you're actually really seeking to target the parent and you're telling the parent entity, listen, if you don't do this, your entire global business is going to suffer consequences.
(41:43) And you know, at the moment, they can do that for free and it doesn't affect them at all. And there's no real push back or response from the United States. there's no no real resistance that we can offer except full withdrawal from the European Union uh and then daring them to come over here to enforce the fine which of course if they were to do that they wouldn't um they wouldn't be able to.
(42:02) So it it's a complicated picture for a company like X and certainly more complicated than it would be for a client like 4chan or Kiwi Farms or Gab. Um, and so we are, you know, to a certain extent we're in a privileged position because we're able to be the tip of the spear because we have these structural, you know, the operations of my clients are structured in such a way that it offers a very significant and meaningful defense to these foreign censorship attempts that a company like Google or Facebook is vulnerable to. So, um, you know, it's
(42:30) and it's a it's a whole of e we're not doing this, you know, I am doing this just for my clients, right? But it just so happens that the solution that would save my clients from this sort of thing would also save any other American company at the same time. So the entire tech industry will benefit if a law is enacted which protects these tiny American companies um as we proposed it because ultimately a law that protects a tiny American company should also protect a big one uh in exactly the same way that it protects the small one.
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(45:09) And I think it's not going to go one of two ways. I think there's many ways it can go. Um like do do you see the potential for bifurcation of the internet particularly on the lines of free speech? >> Uh I do but I think if what granite is designed to do is it's designed to make the Europeans own the consequences of their censorship.
(45:31) So at the moment the Europeans have sought to outsource censorship through they've they've introduced several layers of intermediation between themselves and the censorship by saying well we expect a tech company to comply with these duties and if you don't comply these duties require you right ipso facto commit acts of censorship in the European Union in the UK and on your servers in the United States.
(45:53) If you don't comply with those duties, we won't necessarily order you to remove a particular piece of content, but we will find you, right, to disincentivize you from disobeying us again or not carrying out those duties sufficiently well. And so rather than specifically targeting individual pieces of content for removal, what they do is they create mechanisms whereby third parties, trusted flaggers, independent entities, uh, called super complainers in the UK, they have a super complaints regime for NOS's over there to complain about
(46:20) particular content. and they already have sent some of these complaints in even though the regime isn't live saying look at all this bad content on X look at all these posts that need to be removed and what they do is they say well we've found this bad post this NGO found this bad post you didn't remove this bad post so you're getting fined right for not removing it because we've assessed that you violated your duties and so they never actually want to get their hands dirty doing the censorship themselves something like Granite
(46:44) changes that right it says okay well listen this is an American company if you try to censor the American company or violate their rights you you will we'll see you in court. Um but it is still within your sovereign power if you wish in a European country, United Kingdom, France, Germany, uh you control the pipes leading into and out of your country.
(47:04) And something the United States has no say over is whether you DNS block uh particular pieces of content or domains. So if you want to, if you really think censorship is that important, what you need to do is you need to do it yourself. You need to hire armies of state employed moderators. you need to troll the internet for content you disagree with, you need to block it and when a user seeks to navigate to it, it won't get served.
(47:25) That is that is the type of censorship that we, you know, have no say over because it is purely domestic and it doesn't extend outside of your borders. Now, the reason the Europeans don't do that is because that's politically insane. It won't it won't it's because it puts the censorship directly in the hands of the government and the attribution is directly in the hands of the government.
(47:42) So if a user navigates to a website or to a link or to a particular post that's been banned or a particular tweet, you know, every tweet has its own URL um and they try to get that and they try to access it and it says, you know, won't resolve, you know, this content 404s or whatever it is, then they say, okay, well, the government has stepped in here and there's a direct chain of causation between a government employee and a government rule and the content that the user isn't allowed to see.
(48:07) So what they've done is instead they've set up this very passive aggressive regime where they say we were going to launder that censorship through a third party and we're going to conscript the American to carry it out for us and what we'll do is we'll just lord over it and we'll issue fines if we think that the censorship isn't sufficient and doesn't it doesn't meet our standards or isn't otherwise to our satisfaction.
(48:25) Um and that's that's fine like they're certainly they're certainly welcome to do that. But our position is that if if that that's the approach they're going to take, the American government needs to punch them on the nose. Say, "No, you can't do that. If you really want to censor, you are going to be have to bear the full political cost to that censorship yourself, and we're not going to allow our companies to be forcibly conscripted into those efforts so that you can avoid the full political consequences of your actions." And um I
(48:51) think that if they were forced to do that and we're starting to see that in the UK actually because now they're starting to talk about client side scanning instead of server side scanning. There were there was a discussion in parliament yesterday about this and the prime minister started to talk about this because they know that serverside scanning isn't going to work and also they attempted to do the serverside enforcement against my four clients every American target that you know known American target to date. Uh,
(49:14) and when they did that, they got stopped at the shoreline by a solo, you know, a solo practitioner with an ex. Um, working working nights and weekends for free. So, part of the reason we did that, so I I've gotten a lot of criticism for being very vocal in how we and writing funny emails and sending Pepe memes to them and all the rest of it.
(49:34) But the humiliation is the point, right? We we are sending them Pepe memes and we are sending them funny emails and we are not treating this seriously because they're not treating it seriously because they're not using international procedures to serve these notices. They're not bringing lawsuits in the United States as plaintiffs as we would expect to enforce their fines.
(49:50) They're just pretending that they can go do whatever they want in the UK and that whatever they do in the UK is going to have domestic effect in the US which for any lawyer who has ever done anything crossber ever. Yeah. Any lawyer who's done that will know, right? That's not how this that's not how this game is played.
(50:06) So if they want to get serious and start bringing their own lawsuits in American courts, which of course they're likely destined to lose, then then I will respond seriously, right? But if they're going to send emails over international boundaries and say if we've sent you this email and it is it is legally binding and effective on your client in the US, I'm going to send them a Pepe meme, right, which we have done.
(50:24) Uh it was it was a Pepe hold a little baby Pepe holding sparklers in front of a street, you know, glorious fluttering American flag. And because that because the legal effect of their email is roughly the same as the legal effect of mine, which is not none. Um, and so if they want to get serious, which they're not going to on that front, then they're going to have to change their tactics.
(50:42) But I think they've recognized now that the and they'll never admit it. But they've recognized that the solution of bullying Americans into compliance is not a solution which is durable, and it is one which exposes them to uh it exposes them to political costs both here in the United States and in the UK. if they turn around and do client side scanning, right? That's something where from a legal perspective, it's very different because they can simply say to Apple and Google, and I don't think there's a whole lot of constitutional
(51:09) objection that we can raise. If you want to sell your device here in the UK, you have to have this particular type of client side scanning available for our use. Um, and we will prohibit the sale of phones here. I disagree with that, right? I don't think that's the right approach at all.
(51:24) But it is something which is pretty unquestionably in their sovereign power to do uh that doesn't intrude on American sovereignty uh and doesn't require Americans to surrender their first amendment rights. It simply says that any device which is sold in the UK uh is going to have to participate in our totalitarian panopticon that we have legislated for ourselves.
(51:43) And ideally, right, by doing that what we do is we raise the political temperature in the UK for law reform because people will navigate something on their phone. It'll get intercepted. There will be mistakes. There will be errors. And they'll say, "This is crazy. Why can you know why in the United States am I allowed to have a phone that doesn't do this? But in the UK, I've got this Nerf device that's run by the state and that, you know, calls home to the police anytime I decide to go look at a porn website.
(52:07) " Um, I think that that's that's where we're, you know, but if the UK wants to do that, that is their decision. Um, but we need them to be owning the political cost of it rather than imposing that cost on American citiz. >> Yeah. Yeah, I want to go down now is the NGO thing because we were I mean in the United States TFTC this channel we were subject to this type of mechanism the C center for countering digital hate.
(52:32) >> They came after you. >> They put us on a list um of climate deniers because we've had clim climate scientists who uh disagree with the mainstream um mainstream idea behind cataclysmic climate change. So they put us on the list and they sent it to YouTube and they had algorithms that were scraping our um our transcripts and they highly recommended to YouTube that they demonetize the channel and take down our climate related content.
(53:02) But I mean the point being is like this this NGO sort of layered mechanism existed here in the United States too not too long ago. >> I mean you're you're allowed to advocate for censorship in the United States, right? That's something that you're you're permitted to do. But I think the problem with a group like CCPH is that they work handinand glove with the foreign regulators to censor American citizens, right? So they consult with groups with Ofcom and with the European Commission and groups like that and they will doubtlessly be one of the entities
(53:31) that Offcom listens to under the super complaints regime where they're seeking to censor content in the United States. And so there, you know, you can advocate for censorship here, right? There was actually a lawsuit over this. uh X sued CCDH and X lost the lawsuit because they said, "Listen, this is a strategic lawsuit against public participation.
(53:50) There's protected activity and they're trying to use a breach of contract claim to uh you know, without commenting on the merits myself, that was the ruling." Um, so CCDH can advocate for censorship all they want. What happens is for a while they had a cooperative US tech industry.
(54:05) When Elon bought X or when he bought Twitter and turned it into X, a big piece of that industry ceased to be cooperative. and particularly the piece of the industry which kind of operates as an incubator for policy ideas that then spread out across the rest of the ecosystem. Um and so then Facebook of course after Elon bought Ax and then President Trump was reelected um you know Facebook then said we're going to be listening to these people less.
(54:27) So one thing that these foreign regimes do is they create another avenue for these entities and organizations to apply coercive influence on American platforms to censor protected speech and conduct in the United States. And you know, they they can advocate for that all they want, right? If they're, you know, you're an American citizen here in the United States and you work for CCDH and you think censorship is good and you think the content that uh, you know, X or Facebook or someone else hosts is bad, you have a first amendment right to
(54:53) run around and advocate for for that speech to be removed. Um, however, what they're also doing is they're calling down coercive state power from abroad on these same American companies. And that's something that we have the power to prohibit. um particular the coercive power in particular, not necessarily the advocacy.
(55:11) So yeah, these these organizations have been doing this for a long time. I've been doing this for 10 years. There's never been any meaningful uh legislative intervention to prevent them from using foreign sovereign power or basically they're the way to think about it is they're they do the targeting, right? So they're the guy with the laser targeter and they're painting the target and they tell the the foreign states, "Hey, come after this particular company, right? Uh we want that company taken out.
(55:35) " They went after gab.com, right? And they said, well, it's it's content which is harmful for children, right? On Gab. Well, Gab Gab is is an 18 plus website, doesn't focus on children's content, doesn't permit adult content, uh, and its content moderation policy is aligned with the First Amendment. The likelihood, right, that it doesn't have any apps and app stores or anything like that. It's not widely used.
(55:56) That company was targeted for by for political reasons because they host wrong things, the UK state, and that the NOS's who advise the British state don't like. Um and that you know that is the function that they serve. They point to the target. The regulator listens to the NGO. They launder it and they say listen this is research.
(56:14) This is independent study. It's something like that. This disinformation studies people at Stanford basically just chronically online you sociology PhDs uh who who troll the internet all day and and uh and confuse that for original research which advances the human species. And then they turn around. They write sophisticated well-sighted reports uh point cherry-picking content which they don't like uh out of tens of millions or hundreds of millions of posts.
(56:41) Uh and then they use that to paint a picture of these sites as these lawless you know lawless anarctic wastelands uh that need to be brought you know under control. When I you know the lawyer you know one of the few lawyers willing to represent them you know I know for a fact that some of these websites you get a law enforcement request let's say from the FBI you get a subpoena.
(57:00) um or an emergency request, right? Prime example. These companies are so small, they can turn around those requests in 15 minutes, which is the height of corporate responsibility, right? If if the police approach and they say, "We've got an emergency and we need you to do something." You go to Meta, you go to Google, you go to X, it'll take days.
(57:15) You go to one of these tiny websites, it's there's not a huge amount of, you know, it's tiny team. They know where all, you know, they know where everything is. Executive decisions can be made very quickly. you can get C CEO attention on something very quickly and it doesn't take up a ton of bandwidth and they respond to these requests in under 30 minutes.
(57:32) U you know there's one case where one of these companies we got a we sent a tip to FBI end talk the national threat operations center because a post was was reported by a user uh as potentially presenting a threat. The tip went to FBIN talk at 10 o'clock on a Saturday night. 10:22 on the Saturday night, we get a phone call back from the National Threat Operations Center in West Virginia saying, "Hey, could you please send us, you know, the relevant data? We're on the job.
(57:56) " Right? So, you you have this these companies are actually really responsible and they're actually very efficient at responding when it matters, which is when you actually have a crime being committed. Where they are not responsible, right, is when they're hosting wrong think that the British state thinks is corrosive to British society, but which in the United States is constitutionally protected.
(58:13) And so that is that is why they've been targeted, not because they're non-ooperative with police and not because they're not responsive because in fact these smaller these smaller websites generally are highly responsive uh when you have a when when the rubber meets the road and when it actually matters.
(58:29) Um so there but of course the regulators don't think this because what they've done is they've seen reports that were commissioned to make these websites look like they're run by the spawn of Satan. Um, and you know, they're they're the evil incarnate and their sole purpose is the destruction of of all that is, you know, good in the world because what they did is they cherrypicked content that's been read maybe, you know, posts that have been read maybe three times by obscure accounts spouting, you know, silly ideas, right? Okay. Well, my client's
(58:52) got 100 million users. Are there, you know, in a population of 100 million people? How many of them are going to say stupid things? And how many of them are going to say that on, you know, per day? It's going to be a lot. um and we don't turn around and you know hook everyone up to a neurolink and start censoring their thoughts as a result.
(59:08) So it it that's the NGO sector is is corrosive but it's particularly corrosive because it has been married to foreign state power and because they are steering uh these foreign regulators in making targeting decisions against American citizens. We know that for a fact. Um and so we have you know they can do that right? If you're Americans and you're an American organization, you can call for all the censorship you want because the first amendment protects your right to do so.
(59:33) But I think what we can do right in terms of intervening is we can prevent foreign regulators from being an effective tool to achieve via foreign coercive force what they are unable to achieve by US domestic coercive force. I wear my CCDH um being on that list with as a badge of honor. >> You should >> I'm a new climate denier according to them. Um but again think of solutions.
(59:59) It would be ideal if we didn't have to do any of this and if these countries would just enact better free speech laws and moving back to the UK you have sort of um presented a free speech law for the UK that >> I have fix this problem. What's going on? >> So I'm I'm pretty active in the UK free speech movement.
(1:00:21) I could have been a British citizen. My father was a British citizen. I elected not to do that. um because I I kind of saw the way the wind was blowing when at the relevant time and I said, you know what, I think having a British passport is really not in my interest. Um so maybe at some point I'll go back, you know, naturalize and become a citizen again.
(1:00:37) Um or become a citizen for for the first time. But uh in the meantime, you know, I I enjoy the diplomatic and legal cover that the United States affords me. Um but I wrote something called the UK Free Speech Act in 2020, which essentially creates a First Amendment style principle. It's not the same. It's not co-extensive.
(1:00:53) The language isn't the same. It's not designed to be extensive because that that's a different country with different rules and different practices. But essentially it says that the first amendment should apply to spoken or written expression. Right? So you should be able to say anything and you should be able to write anything um in accordance.
(1:01:09) So other kinds of expressive conduct, you know, we can leave that to one side. It's up to their courts to figure out whether they want to extend that principle that way or not. And repeals large of uh British speech codes in one go, right? It just says, "Listen, here are the laws that need to disappear." And it's big chunks, right? So, it's it's part three of the public order act in its entirety.
(1:01:27) It's large sections of the terrorism acts 2000 and 2006 in their entirety. It's largely the entire communications act would disappear. Um or, you know, I I I want to get disappear the entire communications act and start from scratch, but you know, at least section 127 of the communications act would have to go.
(1:01:44) Uh bits of the contempt of court act for reporting on judicial proceedings would go, bits of the protection from harassment act would go. uh and be replaced by other uh more robust provisions uh that uh you know more robust provisions that uh that would that would protect you know free speech but also right prevent harassment and so I those are really thought experiments right for for teaching for demonstrating to much like the granite act was right illustrating listen here's a thought experiment here's what the world could look like right so we're
(1:02:11) going to just create the idea and then introduce the possibility that this thing could exist and now what we're seeing is the thing is on the verge of existing Right? So, with the UK Free Speech Act, it's similar, right? It's it's saying, "Listen, here's the UK Free Speech Act. Here's what could exist. Now, take that away and go consider how you would adapt it and what you think you can get over the line uh in a politically acceptable fashion.
(1:02:34) " So, you know, I'm not going to say who's working on it or what stage those things are at, but I do know that that proposal has been ingested um by more than one and fewer than three political organizations in the United Kingdom. Uh, and there are people within those organizations who are looking at it very seriously.
(1:02:52) Um, not for immediate enactment because the Labor government is never going to do it because they they don't believe in free speech, but after a general election, that is something which might be on the table as part of a great repeal bill and, you know, potentially doing a large-scale reform of the UK's institutions and its laws to make the place freer, more competitive, uh, and just generally a nicer place to live.
(1:03:13) So, you know, that proposal is out there. It's being it's been chewed on by relevant people. I'm very active in the UK free speech movement. I'm a I'm a legal advisory council of the UK free speech union which is the nation's premier free speech advocacy organization. Uh and essentially when you know these issues come up you know my free speech practice is not a practice.
(1:03:32) It's it it has not been a money-making practice for a very long time. And so I I provide pro bono assistance uh to lawyers who are representing companies that have been targeted under these rules uh because I I do so much of it that basically just reading a lawyer in and saying okay here's here's the back it wouldn't it almost wouldn't be fair to charge for it at some point I'll charge for it but not not until we're done winning the fight.
(1:03:54) Um so you know what we're that process is moving. It's in it's still very prototypical. We haven't got any draft legislation. Nothing's been introduced. There are some MPs who have considered introducing something like the Free Speech Act as a private members bill, but those efforts would largely be symbolic until such time as you have a change of government.
(1:04:14) Um I'm optimistic that if the reform government gets elected that something like the Free Speech Act uh would be enacted fairly quickly. Um and uh and currently they're projected to win the election by 400 seats. So um you know if one were held tomorrow, right? But of course one is not legally required to be held until 2028 or 29.
(1:04:33) Um, so yeah, that's that's where things are there. That's there's a long way to go, but I think the the censorship has finally reached the point where the party in waiting, right, that's waiting for the election to occur by one means or another. Um, is is very much on board with loosening up speech controls.
(1:04:52) uh and it you know these these kinds of fights when you're trying to I've been doing this as I said I've been a free speech activist for 15 years and I've been pushing on the foreign free speech issue as a practitioner for 10 um these fights are play out over decades right and so the objective that I have is not you can't how to put it how to put this when you're trying to steer a state in a particular direction um you cannot do it yourself to start and you cannot do it at once.
(1:05:23) Right? So, what we've seen with the the federal response to uh what's going on with the foreign censorship, this has been a very very very very long process involving a lot of different people in a lot of different places. Both writers and journalists like Mike Benz and Mike Shelonburgger, lawyers like myself and Ron Coleman, um you know, politicians and political activists throughout the federal system have been aware of this.
(1:05:44) And it's been a question of just kind of creating groundwork, laying traps for the foreign sensors to fall into, waiting for cir. It's a waiting game, right? So the online safety act, we knew that was coming in 2019 when it was called the online harms bill. And then of course they enacted it in 2023 when it was finally called the online safety act.
(1:06:04) That was not the right time to launch a counteroffensive, right? We had to wait for them to try to enforce it. And then when they tried to enforce it, that is when we could launch the counteroffensive and go strike. So there's a lot of timing involved and the time scales that are involved are multi-year in invariably and frankly they're multi-deade.
(1:06:24) Um so the UK's free speech fight is nowhere near over. The European speech fight is nowhere near over but a lot of it is just a question of doing prepar very unglamorous preparatory work in in the shadows, right? and watching and observing and gathering evidence and figuring out strategy and figuring out what weak points are and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting until eventually the moment arrives and then what you do is you move.
(1:06:48) So I I expect that that I expect we'll pro if there is going to be a UK free speech act. I would put the timetable on a 5 to 10 year timetable. Probably close if electoral trends continue. It's going to be closer to five. If reform some reason falls apart and doesn't get elected, I'd put it at closer to 10 to 15.
(1:07:05) But you just have to stay in the fight and keep pushing and and eventually you get your moment. So >> is the political will there from the populace in the UK particular? people fed up with this or is there a lot of cognitive dissonance sort of just go along? >> I think that there's a lot of muddling along.
(1:07:22) I think that most people don't care enough because it doesn't affect them. The issue is does it affect enough people um does it affect a a substantial enough minority of the population enough for that minority to exercise the political will to overcome the political apathy of the majority? And I think the answer to that question right now is yes.
(1:07:44) Um so you don't need to get free speech over the line in the UK. You do not need to have 90% of the of the country turning into ardent first amendment activists. You need about 50 to 60% to not care. And then you need about 30% to have it be a foundational part of their uh of their political, you know, their political identity. Uh, and you then need to have them get a parliamentary majority because for most people the the First Amendment doesn't really for most Americans the First Amendment is not something which they recognize as being operative on a daily
(1:08:13) basis, right? It's kind of it's it's really really deep down in the system. It's part of the kernel, right? So, you'll notice it if it's gone, but you're not sitting there thinking to yourself, gee, I really I really use the First Amendment a lot today. And I think in the UK it's kind of similar, but the reverse.
(1:08:28) there's a lot of censorship and people have self-censored in order to stay within the, you know, within the guardrails. So, they're not really aware of how much better things could be for the country and for themselves if you remove the guardrails. And you're never going to be able to convince them that that's the case. But I think the censorship has gotten bad enough that you probably have 25 to 30% of the British population that now thinks that free speech is a critical national issue and they're willing to, you know, they're willing to make that voice heard
(1:08:51) at the ballot box and they're willing to make the voice heard in a very specific way. So it depends on what you know what happens politically over the next two years but I think if we looking at current trends it seems probable that reform will be elected and I'm reliably informed that that reform is very pro- free speech.
(1:09:09) >> Yeah. No because Matt Matt Odell and I were joking about it yesterday on Rapid Hole Recap. We were highlighting Peter McCormick's uh nonviolent sort of opt out campaign that he's been on. And if you go >> he he's trying he's basically throwing his hands up and saying this isn't working like we need to protest um peacefully and nonviolently um to to make a change here in the UK and we were joking about how it was so obvious that he was self-censoring himself uh on the website.
(1:09:40) >> I think Peter's going to be I'm I'm going to put this I'm going to put this on the record. Um I think Peter's going to be prime minister one day. >> You think so? revolute. >> I I actually I actually think that one day he's going to be prime minister. Um that's that's my my most controversial English political opinion is I think one day he's going to he's just so he's just so he's such a good guy, right? and he's such a good communicator and that you I've known him for years and years when he was doing, you know, his own Bitcoin
(1:10:09) specific podcast before he became the big, you know, the UK's version of Joe Rogan. And um he's just such a good guy that like he's the kind of person where you said you want to where I'd like to be is in 15 years, right, looking back and Peter's the prime minister because he's just such a good guy and he cares so much about the country.
(1:10:29) um that for whatever reason circumstances and and his and and Peter collide and he winds up becoming PM. I I think that that's that's my long shot for PM in 15 years. I think that he I think that he's actually going to do it. That's my my hope. >> I would love to see that. It's been incredible watching his uh progression.
(1:10:45) I mean, obviously his move back to Bedford and really um walking away from what Bitcoin did, launching the Peter McCormack show and really leaning into the political topics of the day over in the UK to try and make a difference. It's been um it's admirable at the very least, right? It's been fun to watch. >> Well, I think he's learning he's learning a lot about politics by keeping it hyper local on Bedford, right? And so what he's doing it's an interesting kind of exercise in in teaching himself, right, exactly what so he's what he's
(1:11:18) doing is he's mapping the battle space, right? So he's he's running into all of the craziness about how UK local government works and figuring out how everything's broken and how all their attitudes are attitudes of learned helplessness. So like Kier Starmer is the prime example. Parliament in theory, legal theory, right, has absolute power to do whatever it wants.
(1:11:39) It could it could proclaim, right, by an act of parliament that the moon is made of cheese and that everyone has to refer to the moon being made of cheese and everyone in the UK would have to say once a day when they woke up in the morning, I believe that the moon is made of cheese. that is how much power it has, right? There's no constitutional guardrail on it.
(1:11:54) And the prime minister goes before a committee yesterday, he's like, "Well, there's nothing we could do about uh, you know, immigration issues because every time we do it, there's a judicial review and there regulations and there's a report that has to be done and there's this and there's that and there's this and there's that.
(1:12:06) " And he just go, you have absolute power and write a law, enact it, you delegate the power to a state agency and you can fix any problem you want. But what they've done is they're so there's so much institutional inertia. They're so used to doing things in a way where nothing gets done, right? And they have various constituencies within the state that are highly incentivized to keep it that way, right? Where nothing gets done at speed and everything requires an enormous amount of bureaucracy and accordingly everything requires an enormous amount
(1:12:33) of bureaucrats. That you can never really short circuit it and adopt a sort of startup style mentality where you just go no what what's the real problem here? How do we take a shortcut and how do we how do we make sure that this happens at speed and they but they have unlimited power right in principle. So there's there's nothing stopping parliament from doing it except the own their own in you know internal uh you know internal conception preconceptions and preconceived notions and and self-imposed barriers and I think
(1:12:59) Peter's probably running into that a lot of that dealing with local councils where it's like hey there's a you know here's a problem downtown there's a lot of crime what do you want to do about it and they're like well sorry we can't we can't do anything so Peter goes and hires a private police force right to go and patrol the downtown and the problem goes away right because he can see the problem clearly for what it is understand what the solution is, deploy that solution at speed, and then the problem disappears. But the local
(1:13:23) governments just don't work that way. Right? So he's he's he's learning the map. He's learning how the enemy is shaped. Right? And I think that at some point he's going to he's going to learn enough where he says, "Okay, I I know enough now to figure out what needs to be done.
(1:13:40) " And I think when he does that, he will have his his own my hunch, right? He hasn't he hasn't said anything like that to me or anything like that, but my hunch is that Peter's eventually going to get sick of it enough that he just decides something needs to be done and he's going to jump into the arena. Um and when he does so, he will be a very formidable uh he'll be a very formidable participant that arena.
(1:13:56) So yeah, he's got um try to pull up the site now. He's got um he's got a campaign right now to uh to again it's funny reading reading the website was uh was a hoot because you could tell he was self-censoring to make sure he wasn't making the government mad. >> Everybody everybody over there does they all do.
(1:14:22) And that's you know if I were working over there now I'm an English solicitor right I'm a lawyer over there. If I were over there now I would not I'm not flying over there now for context. I'm not flying over there because I'm afraid I'll be arrested the sec or not arrested but at least searched the second I land because my clients are conceivably criminal targets for the UK's online safety regime, right? And my computer conceivably it doesn't, but conceivably it has relevant information.
(1:14:43) And so they could use counterterrorism laws, for example, to stop me when I enter the border, search my devices, detain me for 12 hours, and then put me on a plane and fly me back straight back to uh to New York. So from my point of view, the UK is not a safe place to be if you are active in free speech at all.
(1:14:58) Right? If they're willing to do that to Graham Lahan when he flies over there because he posted one offensive tweet once. Um you know the the chief architect of of the American legal resistance, right? Who's who's taking them on head on in in every forum available. I I just don't trust that the UK wouldn't take advantage of that.
(1:15:18) So, um, it's it's not a pleasant place to be, uh, to be a speaker and it's certainly not a pleasant place to be a free speech activist. And, yeah, everyone I know over there is very guarded with what they say because they know that if they cross the line, they're not and and that's the whole point, right, about why the First Amendment exists.
(1:15:35) the the realm of public discourse has been severely constrained in the UK, which prevents people from actually participating it and pushing back on state access because effectively if you criticize something, you know, loudly enough, if you criticize a government policy loudly enough, you'll be arrested for it. Um, and that's why that's why we're doing what we're doing here because we we know that we can't allow that to spread into the states.
(1:15:58) Yeah, it's um that's what I wear because I would like to actually go over to Peter's uh conference next year, but he wrote this. I no longer consent the moral case for a peaceful revolution. Um he's got a whole website. Yeah, I think he's trying to make a movement out of it. Um so it's uh it's interesting. It's funny that not funny, it's just >> crazy.
(1:16:22) >> Yeah, >> it's crazy how Peter ended up in this position, too. just going from a >> I mean he's a he's a smart guy who cares and eventually um eventually what happens is if you care about if you care about the world you you get you get involved right and you get involved sometimes that Peter doesn't need to do this right he could keep he could keep running the podcast business not have opinions um and probably make a lot more money than than the trajectory that he seems to be hinting he might go down.
(1:16:51) Um, but you know that's that's what happens if you care, right? You eventually start making decisions that uh that affect your ability to make money, right? But they are you're not optimizing for money at that point. You're optimizing for outcomes. And um I I strongly suspect that Peter will wind up optimizing for outcomes rather than money.
(1:17:11) That's my just knowing, you know, given the aggregate sum of every interaction I've had with him over 10 years, it it seems logical and almost inevitable that he will do that. So, but we'll see. Well, some people say real, recognize, real. It seems like you're real in this sense, too, where you've dedicated a lot of your life to proono work and the defense of free speech, particularly here in America, and hopefully outside of our border.
(1:17:33) So, again, um, Apple blowing smoke up your ass. Thank you for all the work you've been doing on that front. It's extremely important. These are existential. >> Anytime, you know, there I'm not I'm nothing special, though. you know, there there I know at least three other lawyers who if they'd caught this case who they would have done.
(1:17:51) Um but there there are like three people who I know who would who would have done this. Um but but any one of them would have done exactly the same thing. Um it's just a question >> there's less than a handful of us. >> There's less than a handful of us. Yeah. It's it's Ron Coleman, Amy Pikeoff, um maybe Mark Randazza, and um trying to think. And I think that's it.
(1:18:12) I think that's those are I think those are the three others who would have who would have and Mark Renaza Brock Coleman is involved right because he's co-consel on the 4chan case. Uh Amy Pikoff is currently working with Pacific Legal and she's doing fourth amendment work at the border uh which is a big problem here in the US and Mark Rendata is one of the most you know storied first amendment litigators in the United States.
(1:18:34) So you know those those three people I know would have would have done exactly the same thing and one of them in fact is doing you know in involved in this fight. So, um, you know, I'm not alone. There aren't many of us, but there are also, you know, there are a lot of people in the federal government now who care and they can't be named for obvious reasons, but, um, you know, they're pushing the ball forward, too.
(1:18:52) And, uh, I'd say probably another 10 lawyers, uh, in the government in various places are looking at this very seriously and moving the ball forward. So, you know, it's every every issue has its specialists. And I just, you know, my my issue I languished in comparative obscurity just focusing on this one problem nobody cared about for a long time until suddenly everybody did.
(1:19:14) And um and so it it was just a weird set of circumstances where the UK if if Bulgaria had done this, right? If Bulgaria had decided that they were going to have an internet censorship law and they were going to enter the US, I I would not have been the right lawyer for that. You would would have needed a Bulgarian American dual qualified lawyer.
(1:19:31) Um, but it just happened to be coincidence timing and uh and yeah, coincidence, pure coincidence that it happened to be the UK that did it first. Um, but yeah, it's been a it's been a crazy ride. We're not over it's not over yet. This isn't I'm not doing any victory laps yet, but you know, I think we we once we're done reinforcing the American perimeter.
(1:19:50) I think a lot of the UK's the UK's assumptions around uh controlling domestic speech uh are predicated on the additional assumption that they would be able to control American speech and the environment here through their extr territorial rules. And I think the same is true in the UK, in the EU, excuse me, and Australia. And if we can negate that assumption by nullifying the effect of these extr territorial laws here in the United States, uh that will do two things.
(1:20:17) The first one is one, it will communicate to those places that they are not able to pull us down to the lowest common denominator and hobble us competitively. Uh so this is not a viable economic strategy for their countries. And the second thing is it will tell them you are not able to control the political environment here through extr territorial coercion.
(1:20:38) Uh and as a consequence of that we will you know we you you will have to learn to live with America and American free speech online and you will have to make the decision whether you want to really own the censorship like Stazzi style Soviet style controlling what information enters the information economy and uh in sorry my dog is now making more noise.
(1:20:58) He's digging on the carpet under the chair though presumably to go take a nap. U that's my life now. I just I sit here. I fight foreign governments and I have a small poodle who who uh makes noises inside. But yeah, so they'll have to make the decision whether they want to take those politically damaging actions in those in their countries or whether they want to chart a different course uh and try something else.
(1:21:21) I think it'll it'll take a little time, but I suspect over the next 5 to 10 years the alternative course of action. I think I think we've reached a high water mark of this this nonsense and that the the push back once we're done complete once we've completed it here in the US that's going to communicate to a lot of people in Europe that their current course was not sustainable it does not have a future and accordingly they need to alter course as well.
(1:21:42) >> Yeah. With that note any calls to action to the audience? What can anybody who's listening to this who's inspired? What can they do to get involved? >> Um if you're a lawyer uh there's a lot that you can do. Uh, chiefly you can pick up a, you know, pick up a proono case now here and there um and get involved.
(1:22:03) Reach out to me, you know, if there's anything you want to do. Let's let's be friends and um, you know, I can try to send some work your way because if we don't succeed at, you know, holding the line with federal action, but I think we will. But if we don't, uh, there are certainly going to be more clients and I'm certainly not able to take them all myself.
(1:22:21) Uh if you're if you're not an attorney, uh you can retweet, engage with content uh that and call your representatives, that sort of thing. I know that your audience may not actually know this because Taylor Loren, who's a journalist over on the political left, uh who is very much not aligned with the ideals of most Bitcoiners, is actually one of the most outspoken uh pro- free speech activists uh for internet speech in the United States.
(1:22:48) And I frequently find that when she expresses an opinion on uh any one of the many child safety or online safety or age verification laws here in the United States, even I learn something and I find I find myself adopting her positions. Uh and we are not, you know, predisposed to agree with each other by any stretch of the imagination.
(1:23:07) So definitely follow Taylor, follow people she engages with, follow groups like FIRE and Net Choice, retweet their content. uh if you know we get federal legislation in the new year uh please call your representative and say that you support that legislation and uh that you'd like to see it enacted and there will be a time and a place for that.
(1:23:25) You know the bills no bills have been published as yet. Um but yeah I think the I think I think there's there's going to be an interesting story for internet censorship over the next 6 to 12 months and you can get involved. Everything, everything helps. Literally, every retweet, every like, every reply, every phone call you make to a representative.
(1:23:45) Um, if enough of us do it, we make a difference. And it, it requires everybody. You know, it requires everyone. Um, and everyone everyone who is involved does you this effort that we had. You know, nine months ago, I struggled to get a journalist to cover it. I remember I wrote I wrote to uh we provided some documents to Politico and basically the only media coverage has had was a was one link of Politico uploading a PDF and it wasn't a story right and it's become a story because so many people have followed it so many people have engaged
(1:24:12) with it um and so I'm I'm the ship poster and chief right but everybody who's helped to disseminate that content uh is d there is a direct line of causation to every Twitter user every Facebook user every internet user who shared this content engaged that commented on it, even disagreed with it um by making this a conversation that is now uh that's now being had in Washington.
(1:24:36) And yeah, I thank everybody for it because without each and every single person uh who has retweeted anything, read a post, shared it by email, anything like that over the course of the last year, every single one of those things you can and you can chart it. You can actually plot it on a map or on a on a chart. You can see the graph going up up up up and so with engagement and things like that.
(1:24:55) And it's because of you, right? It's because of the people who listen to these podcasts, follow us on Twitter, repost these things that this has become a national issue. Um, and you know, I I would not it's it's it's one of I I wish I could, you know, snap my fingers, make a magic list, and I'm sure there's a way for AI to do that, but uh and rank right every contributor to the discourse, but literally every single person who has contributed to the discussion or participated in the discussion uh and and agreed with us in particular and
(1:25:24) said, "You guys are up, you guys are doing good stuff." All of that has been seen. It's all been ingested. Uh, and now what we're seeing is we're starting to see movement at the federal level to respond to this. So, yeah, thank you to to the entire internet for for helping us do this. >> You're a formidable ship hoster.
(1:25:40) Don't sell yourself short. Um, this is uh this is this was an incredible conversation. Very important. And cosign all that. Get involved if you're listening to this. Uh, every little bit helps. It's a very important again existential fight. Um, as we continue to transition into the digital age, we're we're having the big battles right now, speech being one of the biggest.
(1:26:04) So, Preston, thank you for your time. Thank you for what you're doing. It's incredible work, important work, and um I'm excited to see this progress into 2026. >> Yeah, I'll keep I'll keep you posted, but uh I what I would say to everyone, the parting message is um it may not seem like it, but we we are winning and we are going to win.
(1:26:24) So, watch this space. All right, we're going to win freaks. Peace and love. Thank you for listening to this episode of TFTC. If you've made it this far, I imagine you got some value out of the episode. If so, please share it far and wide with your friends and family. We're looking to get the word out there. Also, wherever you're listening, whether that's YouTube, Apple, Spotify, make sure you like and subscribe to the show.
(1:26:51) And if you can leave a rating on the podcasting platforms, that goes a long way. Last but not least, if you want to get these episodes a day early and add free, make sure you download the Fountain podcasting app. You can go to fountain.fm to find that $5 a month get you every episode a day early adree. Helps the show, gives you incredible value.
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