UK regulators thought they could send an email and police the First Amendment. This new lawsuit is fighting back.
DAN FRIETH
Two of the internet’s most free-speech supporting platforms, 4chan and Kiwi Farms, are taking their fight for online free speech to court, targeting the UK’s communications regulator, Ofcom, for what they describe as an unconstitutional attempt to enforce British censorship laws on American websites.
In a lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, the plaintiffs argue that the UK’s controversial Online Safety Act is not only an unlawful extraterritorial power grab but a direct attack on foundational American liberties.
Read the complaint here.
The suit calls Ofcom’s enforcement tactics a clear violation of the First Amendment and a dangerous attempt to establish global jurisdiction over online speech.
The complaint lays out how the UK’s censorship regime is being pushed onto American soil, despite the fact that both platforms operate entirely within the United States and are in full compliance with US law.
“Parliament does not have that authority. That issue was settled, decisively, 243 years ago in a war that the UK’s armies lost and are not in any position to relitigate,” Kiwi Farms stated bluntly in a letter responding to Ofcom’s demands.
Ofcom, under the new Online Safety Act, is demanding that platforms like 4chan and Kiwi Farms conduct written “risk assessments,” install content moderation systems, remove speech deemed “illegal” by UK standards, and verify the identities of their users.
The platforms face criminal penalties and steep fines of up to £18 million ($24M) or 10% of their global revenue if they refuse.
The plaintiffs argue these demands are not only legally unenforceable but blatantly unconstitutional. “Where Americans are concerned, the Online Safety Act purports to legislate the Constitution out of existence,” the lawsuit states.
Central to the challenge is the claim that Ofcom, a British corporate regulator funded by the very companies it polices, is attempting to impose UK-style speech control on a global scale.
According to the complaint, Ofcom has no lawful authority to regulate US platforms, let alone to compel speech or force the removal of content that is protected under the US Constitution.
The filing asserts that Ofcom’s threats of imprisonment and massive fines, coupled with demands for speech censorship and compelled disclosure of sensitive company information, constitute “egregious violations of Americans’ civil rights.”
The UK regulator has already targeted both platforms with a series of legal notices and threats, despite lacking jurisdiction or proper legal process.
These include multiple emails and letters declaring 4chan and Kiwi Farms in breach of UK law, none of which were served under the required UK-US Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty.
The plaintiffs argue that these attempts at enforcement are not just improper, but “repugnant to United States public policy.”
“Ofcom purports to regulate content and interactions on platforms and services with which Plaintiffs’ users are voluntarily interacting,” the complaint says. “Ofcom seeks to control those interactions in order to satisfy the whims of Ofcom employees or the UK law enforcement or political apparatuses.”
Notably, both platforms have limited or no access for UK users in response to the threats. Kiwi Farms, for instance, blocked UK IPs entirely after receiving what it interpreted as an impending Section 100 order demanding compliance.
The lawsuit requests the court to block Ofcom from issuing further demands without going through proper international legal channels and to declare the Online Safety Act’s enforcement efforts unenforceable in the United States.
It also seeks a permanent injunction against any future attempts by Ofcom to impose UK regulations on the plaintiffs.
The case stands as a direct confrontation between two visions of the internet: one based on the US constitutional tradition of free speech and open access, and another that embraces government-mandated safety regimes that can be weaponized to silence speech on a global scale.
For the plaintiffs, the message is clear: they will not yield to foreign censors. As the suit puts it, “Delaware and West Virginia are not part of the UK. Their citizens, both natural and corporate, do not answer to the UK.”
Preston Byrne of Byrne & Storm, P.C., who represents the plaintiffs, told Reclaim The Net the platforms are refusing to comply with Ofcom’s demands because “American citizens do not surrender our constitutional rights just because Ofcom sends us an e-mail.”
He praised the decision by 4chan and Kiwi Farms to stand firm against the foreign regulator, stating, “In the face of these foreign demands, our clients have bravely chosen to assert their constitutional rights.”
Byrne characterized the UK’s censorship law as a calculated attack on the American tech sector, warning that “the UK Online Safety Act is a brazen attempt by a foreign country to hobble American competitiveness and suffocate American freedom by exporting the UK’s censorship laws to our shores.”
He made it clear that the legal team would not allow such interference to go unanswered: “The First Amendment bar is prepared to hale any foreign censor into federal court at any time to defend any American.”
In a statement to Reclaim The Net, Ronald Coleman of the Coleman Law Firm, P.C., co-counsel in the suit, framed the case as a broader defense of national sovereignty and individual liberty.
“With this action, our clients defend the free speech rights of every American,” Coleman said. “Foreign interference of the type seen in this case is precisely what the First Amendment is meant to protect against.” He underscored the importance of the legal challenge, stating, “We have asked the Court to confirm that Ofcom has no authority to impose or enforce unconstitutional UK laws on American soil.”
For years, British authorities have quietly attempted to export their domestic censorship framework to the global internet, often relying on regulatory pressure and legal threats rather than diplomacy or mutual legal process.
But this lawsuit places those efforts squarely in the spotlight and in front of a US federal court.
By challenging Ofcom’s authority head-on, the plaintiffs are forcing a long-overdue confrontation that could reshape how American companies respond to foreign speech demands.
This case may encourage other platforms, large and small, to resist attempts by overseas regulators to dictate what content can and cannot appear on US-based websites.
It sends a signal that silence is no longer the default, and that complying with extraterritorial censorship may carry greater legal and reputational risk than standing firm.
What begins with these two platforms could grow into a wider movement of American companies defending their independence from foreign speech controls.
If you’re tired of censorship and surveillance, join Reclaim The Net.
This article (4chan and Kiwi Farms Sue UK Regulator Ofcom Over Online Censorship Law, Citing First Amendment Violations) was created and published by Reclaim the Net and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Dan Frieth
See Related Article Below
US Companies Take Ofcom to Court Over “Unlawful” Censorship Under Online Safety Act
LAURIE WASTELL
The implementation of the latest phase of the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) last month is already impacting on US tech firms, with X imposing age-restrictions on content relating to the grooming gangs in order to comply with its so-called child protection provisions. Elsewhere, tensions have been rising, with President Donald Trump needling Sir Keir Starmer over free speech on his recent visit, and a delegation of US lawmakers led by Republication Representative Jim Jordan blasting the state of UK free speech earlier this month. A State Department human-rights report has likewise warned of “serious restrictions” on free speech in Britain in the past year.
Now US firms and free-speech activists are taking the fight to Ofcom, the communications regulator, directly. Lawyers for 4chan, the anonymous image-board site, and Kiwi Farms, a “website and discussion forum that focuses on Internet culture”, have today filed a lawsuit against Ofcom in US federal court, the first of its kind.
As part of its enforcement regime for the new OSA rules, Ofcom has been issuing escalating compliance notices to the two sites over the past few months regarding their regulation of speech for UK users. But for a notice to be served by a foreign power against a US company, typically it would have to go through the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) to be valid, passing through both the US State Department and the Department of Justice.
The lawsuit, by Preston Byrne on behalf of 4chan and Ronald Coleman on behalf of Kiwi Farms, alleges that the notices served against both 4chan and Kiwi Farms were served unlawfully, not having gone through the MLAT. “Ofcom,” Byrne explained to me earlier this month, “is the international equivalent of a stalker-y ex – they’ve been told to stop, it’s unlawful for them to continue, and now we need the courts to intervene.”
It also alleges that the content of those notices, requesting that the sites comply with OSA provisions and threatening fines if they did not, were unconstitutional in the United States on the grounds of the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments and other parts of US law and public policy. These free-speech rights are very jealously guarded by US citizens and taken seriously by US courts – so it is quite possible that the sites will win.
“American citizens do not surrender our constitutional rights just because Ofcom sends us an e-mail,” Byrne said today. “In the face of these foreign demands, our clients have bravely chosen to assert their constitutional rights.”
Coleman said: “With this action, our clients defend the free speech rights of every American. Foreign interference of the type seen in this case is precisely what the First Amendment is meant to protect against.” He added: “We have asked the Court to confirm that Ofcom has no authority to impose or enforce unconstitutional UK laws on American soil.”
An Ofcom spokesperson told the Telegraph: “We are aware of this lawsuit. Under the Online Safety Act, any service that has links with the UK now has duties to protect UK users, no matter where in the world it is based. The Act does not, however, require them to protect users based anywhere else in the world.”
The significance of all this, as Byrne laid out on the Sceptic earlier this month, goes well beyond just these two US firms. Ofcom’s enforcement mechanisms are largely untested, and hitherto all such internet regulation has largely been abided by voluntarily by US firms. Government Ministers have even suggested recently that following the latest stage of the OSA, some firms were policing speech on their platforms too zealously in order to undermine its credibility.
But US firms like X don’t love having to shell out for content regulation operations or risking fines if they fail to. So the key question is what will happen if they simply stop playing ball. After all, if small firms take the fight to Ofcom in US federal court and win, it raises the possibility of larger ones following suit.
At that point the battle between Ofcom and US tech firms may become a game of chicken. A firm like X already has a close relationship with the Trump administration and an owner, Elon Musk, interested in free speech. Should it refuse to comply, Ofcom would face having to follow through on its threats and eventually the world’s most influential social media platform could end up inaccessible in the UK.
Some deranged censorship enthusiasts might see that as a win, but it would be a dark day for the birthplace of parliamentary democracy – and a major spanner in the works of the special relationship.
This article (US Companies Take Ofcom to Court Over “Unlawful” Censorship Under Online Safety Act) was created and published by The Daily Sceptic and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Laurie Wastell
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