The U.K. has repeatedly tried to impose its censorship mandates on Americans and American companies but one legal mind is fighting back to end such international overreach.
Lawyer and senior fellow at the Adam Smith Institute Preston Byrne, proposed a new legal doctrine that would protect the First Amendment rights of Americans, and potentially the rights of those living under authoritarian regimes around the world. In an op-ed for The Blaze, Byrne argued that the laws of the country in which a website or platform operates should be the laws that govern any activity on that website. If widely accepted, this new legal philosophy could be a game-changer for global free speech. 
Australia, Brazil, the European Union, Germany, India and the U.K. have been taking turns attempting to police the internet for at least a few years now. The global nature of the internet, however, has led to confusion on which laws apply to which tech companies, citizens and websites. Byrne is co-litigating a case dealing with these very questions, which his doctrine hopes to clarify.
Byrne calls it “Lex loci machinae,” or “The law of the server is the law of the site.” According to his proposal, Facebook, X, YouTube and any other platforms based in the U.S. should be bound by U.S. laws, not the laws of foreign governments, even though users accessing the site may live under anti-speech authoritarian regimes.
MRC Free Speech America Director Michael Morris commented on Byrne’s approach: “American companies should be exporting American values. Full stop,” he said. “To the extent that other countries are willing to accept platforms that operate under natural law liberties, social media platforms should absolutely grow their businesses abroad. But when foreign countries try to export censorship models onto American Big Tech platforms, the tech giants should say good riddance.”
As Byrne pointed out, the U.K., in particular, has cracked down hard on speech and government criticism online. In recent years, the U.K. government has threatened Americans, levied fines against platforms that do not cooperate with government censorship demands and arrested citizens of other countries over content they post on American social media platforms. The government even sought a “supervisory relationship” with American platforms like Reddit in order to ensure the platforms are adhering to British speech standards.
Byrne and others including House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) have been fighting back against these attempts to squelch speech. Jordan’s committee is monitoring foreign censorship requests through subpoenas for Big Tech’s communications with foreign governments. In an X thread, he gave Americans an update with his findings: “UK regulators threaten American companies with censorship,” he said. He later added, “[W]hen foreign censors pressure companies to take down US speech, @JudiciaryGOP will know. Subpoenaed documents produced to the Committee offer new evidence that this is happening.
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