On September 3, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing to “examine European threats to American free speech and innovation.”
The hearing sought to “highlight how European online censorship laws-specifically the United Kingdom's (UK) Online Safety Act (OSA) and the European Union's (EU) Digital Services Act (DSA)-threaten Americans’ right to speak freely online in the United States” and “how the UK's Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCC) and the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA) target American companies and hurt innovation.”
One of the star witnesses was Nigel Farage, Leader of the UK Reform Party, who submitted testimony warning that “Europe’s regulatory model for online speech, exemplified by the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act…risks exporting restrictive standards to the United States that will violate the constitutional rights of American citizens.”
Farage’s warning should be taken seriously by all Americans, most of whom probably have no idea that Europe and the UK do not protect freedom of speech.
During his contentious back-and-forth with several congressional Democrats, Farage said the UK has sunk into a “really awful authoritarian situation.”
“At what point did we become North Korea?” he asked.
That is a good question. According to Farage, the UK lost its way in 1973, when it joined the European Union and “gradually transformed into a European way of thinking.”
“We lost our bearings,” Farage added. “The UK lost its way, it became obsessed about doing things the European way — countries frankly that don’t have that history of liberty, freedom and democracy that we do.”
Although the UK is no longer a member of the European Union, it has continued to adopt EU-like regulations on free speech.
In 2023, the UK Parliament passed the notorious Online Safety Act, “ a new set of laws that protects children and adults online.”
Specifically, the Online Safety Act is intended to “protect adult users, ensuring that major platforms will need to be more transparent about which kinds of potentially harmful content they allow, and give people more control over the types of content they want to see.”
This might sound like a good thing at first glance, however, it has been used and abused in a futile effort to curb so-called “hate speech.”
Farage cited two blatant examples of how the Online Safety Act has been used to chill free speech.
The first case occurred in 2024, when Lucy Connolly was sentenced to a 31-month prison term for posting on X that the UK should begin a “mass deportation now.”
The more recent case has garnered international attention. This week, Irish citizen Graham Linehan, a comedian, was arrested when he arrived at London’s Heathrow Airport due to a few mean tweets he posted months ago.
Back in April, Linehan wrote on X, “If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls.”
Granted, that was sort of crass and could be considered offensive. But does it merit a public arrest by five armed officers and a likely lengthy prison sentence? I think not.
“This could happen to any American man or woman that goes to Heathrow, that has said things online that the British government and British police don’t like,” Farage warned.
For me, the best part of the hearing was when Farage issued a full-throated defense of freedom of speech, reminding many Democrats on the committee that freedom of speech does cover pejoratives and offensive language.
After a juvenile tirade from Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who ridiculed Farage as “a Donald Trump sycophant and wannabe” and said he was “most at home with the autocrats and dictators of the world who are crushing freedom on Earth,” Farage replied: “Delightful testimony you gave me earlier on with your speech. But hey, that’s fine, you can say what you like, I don’t care. Because that’s what free speech is.”
“We’ve kind of forgotten the Voltaireian principles that we’ll fight and defend to the death your right to say something that we fundamentally disagree with,” he added.
Voltaire, a French philosopher, is credited with the free speech slogan: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
I agree with Voltaire and Farage. Freedom speech should be absolute. Censorship is a slippery slope. I hope Farage’s message resonated with Democrats because the left, which was once the sentinel of free speech, seems to be enamored with Europe’s call to silence any speech it deems harmful, offensive, etc. This is not in line with America’s founding values and poses a clear and present danger to the very freedoms Americans have cherished for more than two centuries.
Chris Talgo (ctalgo@heartland.org) is editorial director at The Heartland Institute.
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