Currently, 30 countries – 31 sovereigns, if we count the EU as a sovereign distinct from its members – are launching a coordinated and systematic assault against the United States and our technology sector in an effort to prove that the First Amendment is a dead letter online. The “baddies” are the EU and its 27 member states, the UK, Australia, and Brazil.
And at least 8 American companies from across the political spectrum – left, right, center, and otherwise – are already fighting back in various court systems around the world.
The United States Congress can, and should, back these sites up with legislative action here at home, because efforts to fight foreign censorship rules in a foreign forum to protect First Amendment-protected speech are almost certainly doomed.
These foreign countries really do think that their censorship laws should apply in America. See the below from one London law firm this week:
Nah. I think we’ll fight back instead.
As an aside, one could be forgiven for thinking that London lawyers were actually rooting for the OSA based on the stuff they’re publishing about it.
The UK, EU, and Australia are what most people in tech are focused on. People don’t talk about Brazil very much, but Brazil is nonetheless a very active belligerent in this fight. That country has targeted X, Rumble, and Truth Social, and also attempted, on October 13th, on the same day that Ofcom fined my client 4chan, to impose their content moderation rules on 4chan.
Very fishy, although I have no confirmation that this was coordinated. It didn’t matter, nor did it change our answer: we told Brazil to go to hell.
Australia’s age verification rules have targeted every U.S. tech major. Reddit is challenging it in Australian court. I am not optimistic.
Wikipedia tried that in England and, because England doesn’t have free speech, they lost. Reddit’s fighting in Australia. Australia doesn’t have free speech either:
Wikipedia has indicated that when Ofcom comes for them, and Ofcom will, they will refuse Ofcom’s orders.
Rumble and Truth won ex parte emergency relief confirming that their orders from Brazil were not effective in America, either:
X just got fined EUR 140 million by Europe. It has not signaled a willingness to pay.
In America, when 4chan sought similar declarations vs Ofcom as Truth and Rumble got in their TRO application – confirming simply (the obviously legally correct position) that 4chan was not properly served – Ofcom, rather than conceding the point and walking away, sought to dismiss the entire case on the grounds of sovereign immunity:
On the center-left: Reddit, Wikipedia.
On the center-right: X, Rumble, Truth Social.
On the right: Gab.
Somewhere off in the fourth dimension, nowhere to be seen on the map: Kiwi and 4chan.
Everyone’s fighting back, across the political spectrum, because we all know that every American is threatened by foreign censorship.
We are doing so in any forum in which we have standing. I think we can all agree that American courts are the proper venues to invoke First Amendment defenses, and that American courts should have the power to intervene when a foreign power wants to take Americans’ First Amendment rights away.
Every American deserves to be shielded from this foreign intrusion on American sovereignty.
The GRANITE Act, if Congress chooses to enact it, is that shield.