By now, a sizable segment of Americans is aware of cases in the United Kingdom where individuals have been detained over social media posts. Many may not realize that vigorous foreign regulators, such as the U.K.’s Office of Communications (Ofcom), have attempted to govern and penalize U.S. companies. These demands clash with the First Amendment, and lawmakers are considering federal measures to shield Americans from this external overreach.
On Thursday, Rep. Michael Rulli (R–Ohio) unveiled the Guaranteeing Rights Against Novel International Tyranny and Extortion (GRANITE) Act. The legislation states that U.S. courts “shall not recognize or enforce a foreign judgment, or a fine, order, or demand issued by a foreign court or a foreign state, enforcing a foreign censorship law.” It would also empower any American facing an unconstitutional foreign judgment to seek declaratory relief.
“The First Amendment protects Americans’ freedom of speech from government infringement,” Rulli wrote on X. “Yet foreign governments have claimed the authority to target American citizens and companies for constitutionally protected online expression.” He asserts the bill would “defend our digital sovereignty and shield Americans from foreign censorship attempts.”
A state-level GRANITE Act has already emerged in Wyoming, introduced by state Rep. Daniel Singh (R–Cheyenne). The state and federal proposals are the brainchild of tech policy lawyer Preston Byrne, who drafted an initial version of the GRANITE Act on his blog. Byrne represents U.S. companies, including 4chan, that have faced multiple unenforceable demands by U.K. regulators. Earlier this year, when Ofcom fined 4chan £520,000 (about $703,000) for failing to comply with the U.K.’s Online Safety Act, Byrne told the regulators over email that the U.S. company “reserves all rights and waives none,” including “the right to sue you again and/or to respond to future correspondence with an even larger rodent, such as a marmot.” The email included a picture of a giant AI-generated hamster, as Reason’s Elizabeth Nolan Brown reported.
In January, Byrne told Reason that there is a risk that “enough people will say, ‘OK, we just want the hassle to go away. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to comply because the letters are scary, and we’re not free speech activists and we don’t think that the U.K.’s rules are so bad.'”
Both the federal and state GRANITE Act proposals would apply to all foreign regulators, not just those in the United Kingdom. But as U.S. lawmakers move to curb foreign censorship, the bipartisan push to enact domestic online safety measures continues. While these bills claim to protect children, critics warn they could threaten online freedom for all users, as platforms must take precautions to comply with regulations meant to mitigate harm.
In June, the House passed the KIDS Act, a bundle of online safety measures that free-speech groups such as Reclaim the Net have warned could raise privacy concerns and enable government overreach. Rulli, along with a bipartisan majority, voted in favor of the KIDS Act, which now awaits consideration in the Senate. The Senate has also advanced several online safety bills this summer, including its version of the Kids Online Safety Act, which would require “covered online platforms, including social media platforms, to implement tools and safeguards to protect users and visitors under the age of 17.”
Online censorship in the U.S. may not be as severe as it is abroad (yet). Yet if lawmakers and companies continue to yield to censorship demands from regulators at home or abroad, the online world as we know it could become less free, and its users would be worse off.
