UK speech lords back down as US tariffs loom

The U.K.’s Online Safety Act has been the source of a lot of controversy in recent months, but recent tariff threats from the Trump administration have forced the U.K. to reconsider its role in online censorship.

Sir Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party and prime minister of the U.K., has reportedly “signaled to Washington that [the U.K.] is open to revising the controversial and dangerous Online Safety Act.”

Setting aside the obvious threat to free speech that this act poses, the potential financial burden on US companies has strained trade relations between the UK and the US.

While trade and free speech may not immediately seem to be connected, opponents of the Online Safety Act have argued that tech platforms may face potentially heavy financial burdens in order to comply with the law. Companies would face “substantial financial penalties” for failing to take down “harmful content” on their platforms.

One of the major points of criticism of the act, which claims to seek to “keep everyone safe online,” is that the language used is hopelessly vague. Critics have claimed that this vagueness would lead to over-enforcement, among other issues.

In order to avoid these penalties, companies would likely be forced to adopt new strategies for monitoring content on their platforms. For example, some have warned that companies will be forced to pre-emptively censor speech in order to comply. This strategy has been dubbed the “when in doubt, cut it out” approach by critics.

Setting aside the obvious threat to free speech that this act poses, the potential financial burden on U.S. companies has strained trade relations between the U.K. and the U.S.

The punitive measures of the act are potentially very harmful to U.S. tech companies. Companies that fail to comply with the moderation rules made by Ofcom may be “fined up to £18 million or 10 per cent of their global revenue.”

Andrew Hale, a trade policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, noted that this conflict has strained the possibility of the U.S. and the U.K. striking a trade deal: “Every meeting I have to discuss trade policy with people either in the administration or in Congress … they always [say], ‘This is a huge roadblock.’”

Elon Musk, the owner of X and a vocal opponent of the Online Safety Act for both of these reasons, has “recently welcomed Trump’s presidency as a potential counterweight to the U.K.’s regulatory crackdown.”

Trump’s tariff threats against the U.K. have forced this reconsideration of the enforcement of the Online Safety Act.

Some people saw the results of this inevitable standoff in advance. For example, Lord Toby Young of Acton, the founder of Free Speech Union, reportedly said, “If [this confrontation] happens, Trump will side with his tech bros and tell Sir Keir that if he wants a trade deal, he’ll call off his dogs.”

The fight is far from over, however. Labour and the Online Safety Act’s proponents have created a repressive regime that stifles free speech. The Online Safety Act is simply the boldest attempt to censor free expression. A source close to the Trump administration reportedly said, “To many people in power, they feel the United Kingdom has become a dystopian, Orwellian place where people have to keep silent about things that aren’t fashionable.”

Trump and his “tech bros” are giving Labour a final opportunity to step away from these free speech attacks. With new powers set to be granted to Ofcom in March of this year, now is the time to put continuous pressure on the U.K. government to ease off its draconian speech laws.