House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) just let foreign censors know, America is watching them.
Jordan denounced the U.K. Office of Communications (Ofcom) in a July 28 thread, warning Americans that “UK regulators threaten American companies with censorship.” To demonstrate his point, Jordan included a screenshot of an email from Ofcom to the pro-free speech video platform Rumble. In the email, someone from Ofcom ominously warned, “We will be monitoring Rumble’s position carefully and will be in touch,” before pressuring the platform to censor any content that would be illegal in the U.K.
The U.K. passed the anti-free speech Online Safety Act in 2023, threatening platforms with losses of 18 million pounds ($24 million) to 10% of their annual global revenue if they failed to carry out the law’s censorship provisions. The Online Safety Act also includes age verification rules, which went into effect on July 25. The U.K. is additionally infamous for jailing citizens over their online speech, and even recently deployed its specialized speech police to root out online wrongthink related to immigration.
But Jordan made clear in his thread that American tech platforms will not face anti-free speech governments alone. The House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Rumble, TikTok and X earlier this year so that any threats made by power-mad EU bureaucrats could be brought to light. Specifically, the committee required social media platforms to send over any communications with foreign governments related to anti-free speech laws, regulations and court orders. Jordan argued that this transparency will also alert Americans when the EU or European governments are trying to censor their speech as well.
However, Jordan warned that Ofcom pressure on Rumble and other American tech platforms like Reddit showed that U.K. censors were trying to extend their anti-free speech rules across the pond. Jordan wrote, “That’s right – UK authorities want to ‘supervis[e]’ a non-UK tech company that ‘does not have a significant number of online users in the UK’ and is not targeting the UK market.”
The House Judiciary Committee chairman also included a disturbing letter from Ofcom to Reddit from December 2023, prodding the platform to agree to a “supervisory relationship” to help the UK government “embed [its] standards” in Reddit’s policies. Ofcom specifically cited wanting to direct how Reddit handled “hate” on its platform.
Emphasizing the U.K.’s extraordinary anti-free speech climate, Jordan pointed out that “[The U.K. Information Commissioner] even singled out Reddit, claiming that its speech-friendly policies do not ‘align’ with ‘the expectations of British lawmakers.’” Yes, Reddit!
Jordan said that the House Judiciary Committee would continue to shine a light on the U.K. and other countries that made such demands of American tech companies. “The Committee continues to investigate foreign threats to American free speech—and act on them. Tech platforms continue to produce their communications with foreign government censors on an ongoing basis to the Committee under subpoena.”
Jordan added, “As long as foreign legislators, judges, and regulators continue their attempts to silence US citizens, we will not stop fighting back.”
Conservatives are under attack! Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
