White House warns Starmer: Stop threatening US tech companies' free speech

Telegraph

5 days ago

The White House has warned Sir Keir Starmer to stop threatening American tech companies amid mounting backlash over Britain's online safety law.
Members of Donald Trump's administration are monitoring the Online Safety Act with 'great interest and concern' after key allies said it was censoring free speech and imposing unfair burdens on US businesses.
The law, which regulates online speech, allows the British government to levy massive fines on companies like Apple, Truth Social, and X if it finds that rules on hate speech have been broken.
Those in the president's inner circle see the potential penalties as an unwarranted foreign intervention into American free speech.
'President Trump has made it clear that free speech is one of our most cherished freedoms as Americans,' a senior US State Department official told The Telegraph.
'Accordingly, we have taken decisive action against foreign actors who have engaged in extraterritorial censorship affecting our companies and fellow citizens.
'We will continue to monitor developments in the UK with great interest and concern.'
Since the law came into effect last week, Ofcom, the UK's online regulator, has written to several American firms ordering them to conform to the act, in letters seen by The Telegraph.
It has sparked outrage from US lawmakers and legal experts, who say the overreach is a threat by the UK to silence American companies and citizens.
Congressman Jim Jordan, chair of the House Judiciary GOP committee, said the law was an attack on American companies.
'Ask Apple and they would view it as a $500 million attack,' he told The Telegraph.
'There's general concern... and then there's concern on how this impacts American citizens, American companies and infringes on our First Amendment.
'As long as foreign legislators, judges, and regulators continue their attempts to silence US citizens, we will not stop fighting back.'
Mr Jordan also raised concerns over the bill's overreach with Peter Kyle, the Science Secretary, on Wednesday.
Under the law, social media giants face fines of up to £18m ($24m), or 10 per cent of their annual revenue, if they fail to remove content deemed harmful from their platforms.
While the measures are designed to protect young people from dangerous content, critics argue that it pressures platforms into censoring users by removing their content if it is disliked by others, even though it is perfectly legal.
Social media apps such as X, Reddit and TikTok have been forced to introduce age verification checks since the bill came into effect last week.
The warning to Sir Keir is the latest sign of Donald Trump's willingness to intervene in domestic British affairs amid a growing transatlantic rift over the protection of freedom of speech.
During his meeting with the Prime Minister in Scotland, Mr Trump warned Sir Keir not to censor his social-media platform, Truth Social.
'Well, I don't think he's going to censor my site, because I say only good things,' Mr Trump said.
In May, The Telegraph revealed that the president sent US officials to meet British pro-life activists over censorship concerns.
The diplomats from the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour (BDHL) travelled to London in March in an effort to 'affirm the importance of freedom of expression in the UK and across Europe'.
Led by Samuel Samson, a senior adviser in the state department, they met with officials from the Foreign Office and challenged Ofcom over the Online Safety Act.
Since then, the Trump administration has also raised questions about the conviction and sentencing of several high profile cases like that of Lucy Connolly.
Connolly, a former childminder and the wife of a Conservative councillor, is currently serving a two-and-a-half-year jail sentence over a social media post published in the wake of the killings of three girls in Southport.
After rumours spread online online that the killer was an illegal migrant, Connolly called for 'deportation now' and added: 'Set fire to all the... [asylum] hotels... for all I care'.
Three Court of Appeal judges rejected the 42-year-old's case application last week, meaning she will not be released before August.
And no case has raised concerns in Washington more than the prosecution of Livia Tossici-Bolt, an anti-abortion campaigner.
The 64-year-old was handed a two-year conditional discharge and ordered to pay £20,026 ($26,624) in costs for breaching a buffer zone while praying outside an abortion clinic.
At the time, the case threatened to jeopardise Sir Keir's trade deal with the United States.
In a highly unusual intervention, the State Department's BDHL posted a statement on X saying: 'We are monitoring [Ms Tossici-Bolt's] case. It is important that the UK respect and protect freedom of expression.'
Ms Tossici-Bolt, who could have been handed a prison sentence, thanked the Trump administration for its intervention.
Those closest to the president have long raised concerns about the erosion of free speech in Britain.
In a speech at the Munich security conference in February, JD Vance, the US vice-president, cited British pro-life campaigner Adam Smith-Connor, who too was convicted for breaching a buffer zone outside an abortion clinic.
'Free speech in Britain and across Europe [is] in retreat,' Mr Vance said.
Before his spectacular fallout with the president, Elon Musk was understood to be pushing Mr Trump to raise curbs on social media regulation in trade talks with the UK.
Mr Musk, who has described himself as a free speech absolutist, said Britain's online safety laws amount to 'suppression of the people'.
Several American businesses are now poised to bring a federal lawsuit against Ofcom.
Preston Byrne, managing partner of Byrne & Storm, PC who is representing some of the US sites, said no foreign power should be allowed to 'cross our waterline'.
'I am instructed by multiple American websites to bring a federal lawsuit against Ofcom,' he said.
'No matter who is the target, the US free speech bar will not allow any American to be censored by a foreign government. No foreign power will be allowed to cross our waterline with unconstitutional and illegal orders.'