Is JD Vance right about free speech being under attack in the UK?

The limits of state control

Free speech is fast becoming a defining ideological fault line between Britain and the United States.

Despite the UK government insisting that it remains committed to this foundational democratic value, in Washington doubts are growing – with the two countries apparently on the brink of a full-blown dispute about the limits of state control, the obligation of private messaging apps to protect their users’ privacy and the future of democratic debate itself.

Quizzed by reporters after his recent meeting with Vice President JD Vance, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was asked whether the UK’s Online Safety Act 2023 (OSA) amounted to censorship. He dismissed the claim point-blank, saying: “We don’t believe in censoring speech.”

His assertion, though, was in direct contradiction to concerns raised earlier that day by Vance, who publicly challenged Sir Keir over the UK’s poor track record on free speech during an awkward moment at a White House press conference.

Asked about his address at the Munich Security Conference, where he’d accused European governments of restricting freedom of expression, Vance replied: “I said what I said. We do have, of course, a special relationship with our friends in the UK and also with some of our European allies. But we also know that there have been infringements on free speech that actually affect not just the British… but also American technology companies and, by extension, American citizens.”

At which point Sir Keir, seated a few feet away, interjected: “Well, we’ve had free speech for a very, very long time in the United Kingdom, and it will last for a very, very long time.”

Yet the Prime Minister’s portrayal of Britain as a bastion of free expression sits uneasily with his record. Since winning power in July 2024, his government has presided over a radical expansion of state control of online discourse.

At the heart of Vance’s concern is the OSA, which grants Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, unprecedented powers to police speech. On paper, the Act is framed as a tool to combat illegal content: child abuse, terrorism and fraud. In practice, it goes far beyond that, empowering Ofcom not only to demand the removal of unlawful content but also to pressure platforms into pre-emptively censoring anything that lies in the ‘grey zone’ between legal and illegal forms of expression.

From 17th March, platforms will be required to protect users from “online harm”, a term so vague it covers both illegal and legal content. And should companies like X or Meta fail to remove content that Ofcom retrospectively deems “harmful”, they can be fined up to 10 per cent of their annual gobal turnover – which in Meta’s case is over $16 billion.

Platforms will inevitably play it safe

The ambiguity around “harmful” speech all but guarantees over-removal. Platforms will inevitably play it safe by deleting anything controversial – especially content labelled mis- or disinformation, which in practice means anything that challenges progressive orthodoxies on immigration, trans rights, climate policy and public health.

Ofcom’s latest guidance has already urged platforms to go “above and beyond” their legal obligations under the OSA by censoring “misogynistic” and “hypermasculine” content even when it’s entirely lawful. As Ofcom puts it: “Misogynistic speech is often not illegal, but, at scale, it can normalise harmful beliefs in men and boys and impact women and girls’ experience both online and offline.”

But this raises the obvious question of who gets to define misogynistic speech. While few would deny misogyny is a problem, the term itself is so subjective that it stretches from the unambiguously illegal to the merely provocative.

The consequences of such an elastic definition are hard to ignore. Given the complexity of language, how will automated systems – blunt instruments at the best of times – detect “misogyny” with any nuance? The likely outcome, once again, is over-censorship, as platforms err on the side of caution.

The regulator insists this guidance remains voluntary, unlike the Act’s binding duties on illegal content and child safety. But history tells us that “voluntary” in name often means mandatory in practice. The EU’s Hate Speech Code of Conduct has shown how regulatory pressure and media scrutiny lead platforms to self-censor long before enforcement notices are sent out. Similar interventions in Germany also demonstrate that voluntary moderation regimes incentivise platforms to remove far more speech than legally necessary.

Yet Ofcom ‘nudging’ platforms into removing ‘problematic’ content is just the beginning, with the groundwork now being laid for even greater state control.

Spiralling into outright censorship

This month, the House of Commons Women and Equalities Select Committee recommended the creation of an Online Safety Commission, with a focus on forcing social media platforms to remove ‘non-consensual intimate images’, but which will inevitable go beyond that. Worryingly, the Committee said this new enforcement agency should be modelled on Australia’s eSafety Commission, a body that has proved how quickly such powers can spiral into outright censorship.

In 2023, for instance, Jasmine Sussex – an Australian breastfeeding expert – tweeted that “men cannot breastfeed”. Shortly afterwards, she received a notice from Twitter (as it then was) stating her tweet would be withheld in Australia after a government entity – widely believed to be the eSafety Commission – had reported it as unlawful.

Then there’s the case of the gender-critical activist Chris Elston (aka “Billboard Chris”). In 2024, Elston objected on X to the appointment of an Australian trans activist to a World Health Organization panel and referred to the individual by male pronouns. eSafety declared the post “cyber-abuse material” – and gave X 24 hours to remove it or face a fine of A$782,500.

Also in 2024, a hearing at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal exposed a de facto censorship scheme inside the eSafety office. Instead of issuing formal removal orders (which come with avenues for appeal or review), staff were quietly pressuring platforms to take down content though informal requests without invoking the law. These “complaint alerts” resulted in removal of posts with users not being informed that the government had intervened, meaning they had no chance to contest the take down decisions.

At the tribunal Justice Kyrou ruled that this method “involves less accountability than removal notices” because no proper reasoning is given. He further warned that eSafety’s lack of clear criteria risks subjective enforcement by individual officials.

If adopted in the UK, this tactic would strip users of even the OSA’s limited free speech safeguards, pushing platforms into the role of censors and compelling the enforcement of government-approved speech codes.

And the increase in control doesn’t stop there. There’s a growing suspicion that ministers intend to expand Ofcom’s remit by granting it sweeping new powers to restrict speech under the pretext of “crisis management”.

The safetyist logic

One of the bodies pushing for this expansion in Ofcom’s powers is the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), co-founded by Morgan McSweeney, now Sir Keir Starmer’s Chief of Staff. The CCDH has lobbied for the Secretary of State at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to be given the power to “direct” Ofcom to remove content identified as endangering “the health or safety of the public”, although it added that these powers should only be used in an “emergency”.

That caveat is hardly reassuring. Activist groups and regulators have a long record of manufacturing perpetual crises to justify ever-tightening restrictions. The CCDH itself has previously pushed for the removal of “climate denial” from social media – a category it very broadly defines as “arguments used to undermine climate action”.

If debates over net-zero policies can be framed as a national security issue, what else might fall under Ofcom’s emergency remit?

But the UK government isn’t stopping at regulating speech. The safetyist logic underpinning the OSA has now extended to private digital communications, justified under the guise of national security.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper recently issued a Technical Capability Notice (TCN) to Apple, compelling the company to create a mechanism for government access to encrypted data under the Investigatory Powers Act 2016. This could mean dismantling end-to-end encryption protections that even Apple itself cannot currently bypass; that is, the very process that ensures messages, photos, and personal data remain accessible only to the user.

The implications extend far beyond Britain. If Apple introduces a backdoor for UK authorities, it won’t stop there. Governments across the world – including China, Russia, and Iran – will seize on this precedent, arguing that if Britain gets access, why shouldn’t they? Once a backdoor exists, Apple can no longer claim it cannot decrypt user data. It will simply become a question of who gets access.

Vance’s criticism of EU free speech constraints was pointed, but his warning that Britain is even worse was wholly justified. While European governments have long flirted with digital censorship, Britain is now setting the pace, reshaping the boundaries of permissible speech at an alarming rate. The question is not whether Britain is on this path, but how far it will go.

If Sir Keir feels any discomfort about this, he’s good at hiding it. Speaking to Fox News in the aftermath of his tense press conference with Vance, the Prime Minister brushed off concerns that his government was tightening the screws on free expression. “We had a really good discussion, and I made clear we’ve had freedom of speech in the United Kingdom for a very, very long time, and it remains a fundamental part of our democracy,” he reiterated.

But democracy for whom? A system in which speech is tolerated only when it aligns with government-approved narratives is not democracy as most people would understand it.

Meanwhile, the UK isn’t simply introducing stricter digital regulations, it’s also putting itself at odds with its closest ally and the values that once defined the West. As the US draws a firm line in the sand on speech restrictions, Britain is drifting off the wrong side.

For more material concerning the UK's attitude to censorship, visit the Free Speech Union.

Dr. Frederick Attenborough

Dr. Frederick Attenborough | Research Director of the Free Speech Union