Billionaires preach from Monaco, ministers sack their way to “stability”, and the nation gets soothed with Clubcard noodles while the headlines do laps round your nervous system

As many of you know, I represent every single target of formal enforcement under the Online Safety Act in the United States _pro bono_. One of these clients, SaSu, has already blocked the United Kingdom. SaSu, however, is one of the reasons that the Online Safety Act was enacted, so much so that it was the canonical example that the UK’s Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, chose to raise in front of the President of the United States when explaining why the Online Safety Act exists. The failure of the Online Safety Act to finish the job and destroy this website – which is U.S. based – has caused a bit of a stir in the UK’s political circles of late. As a result of that political kerfuffle, I received an extraordinary letter (uploaded at the bottom of this post) from the UK communications regulator, Ofcom, on January the 6th, purporting to “provide your client with an update on our ongoing investigation” into the following matters: This is a bit of a bait-and-switch. My client elected to block the United Kingdom in order to remove itself from the scope of the Online Safety Act. Ofcom deemed this satisfactory and, on October 13th, told my client, and the world, as much: Following this, the UK’s NGO sector, which campaigned for the Online Safety Act for years on the basis that SaSu was capable of being destroyed by the Act, went apoplectic (as detailed in The Ofcom Files: Part II), called for the forum operators to be arrested, and launched a national media campaign. On the same day, Ofcom promptly abandoned its much-vaunted political independence and reopened the file. And, this week, we get the letter at the bottom of this post from the regulator, combined with a letter from a cross-party group of UK MPs calling on the regulator to get involved. We responded to Ofcom’s letter. > We responded to Ofcom. > > "Shows its teeth," maybe, but that dog won't hunt. https://t.co/j8OkrvVy1j pic.twitter.com/3fOTseQyvq > > — Preston Byrne (@prestonjbyrne) January 6, 2026 And I responded to those MPs. > This is because the site is in the United States, where it violates no law and indeed is engaged in constitutionally protected expression. > > The site in question, called SaSu, has already voluntarily blocked the UK. My client is not sure what more the UK requires of it. https://t.co/uxsCfOCh5y > > — Preston Byrne (@prestonjbyrne) January 7, 2026 This letter follows a fiery speech from the from the Secretary of State for DSIT in the House of Commons last month, who vowed to accelerate enforcement against my client during PMQs late last month. I would like to make a couple of observations about Ofcom’s letter that I find, frankly, a little disturbing. First, Ofcom appears to be poised to demand of my client, which, I remind you, has blocked the UK, that it must nonetheless comply with all of the Online Safety Act’s censorship duties and risk reporting duties, enforcement of which Ofcom effectively waived with its public announcement on October 13th but has only reversed under political pressure. Otherwise, Ofcom tells us, it will… *checks notes* get a court order that blocks my client from the UK. Or, rather, blocks the site from the UK *a second time,* because my client has already done this voluntarily. As a so-called “independent regulator,” Ofcom is not supposed to reverse itself under political pressure. Here, it appears to have done so. And the punishment it seeks to impose, nationwide blocking, has no safety rationale and would be purely performative, since the desired outcome was achieved through voluntary compliance after Ofcom first threatened my client, almost a year ago. Second, in the absence of any concrete evidence that my client has done anything wrong, and until this week Ofcom’s stated public position was that it had not, Ofcom has taken the extraordinary step of, once again in this matter, using regulatory correspondence to take pot shots at opposing counsel. > Further, as part of our investigation, we have noted comments from your blog dated 6 November 2025 discussing Sanctioned Suicide’s case, in which you stated that “the only way to counter [Ofcom’s] strategy is to deny Ofcom a clean precedent” and “ensure that any “orders” [Ofcom] give to Americans are visibly and publicly refused”. Ofcom goes further, in their correspondence, stating: > it appears clear from your blog above that you intend to advise your client not to take steps to comply with its obligations under the Act or with decisions that may be issued by Ofcom; I would remind Ofcom that these are my words, not the words of my voluntarily cooperative client, and that I am not a regulated user-to-user service with links to the UK. Ofcom might claim to regulate the Internet, but it doesn’t regulate me. In this matter I am regulated by the Court, specifically, the Supreme Court of the State of Connecticut. The Court expects and indeed requires me to be a zealous advocate for my client’s interests and to save my client using any and all expedient means. In this case, with a nation-state opponent and a financially defenseless American client, alerting the American political and legal systems to Ofcom’s extraterritorial adventurism is one of those means. I also remind Ofcom that it has no clue what I advise my clients. Those communications are privileged and that privilege is not waived. I am sure they will try to use my public statements in their court application for a blocking order. If they do so, I hope a judge of the High Court has the good sense to see this conduct for what it is, _sua sponte_ , as my American clients have no intention of appearing to explain their constitutionally protected conduct to an English tribunal. I understand Ofcom might be a little upset that their project has been delayed for an entire year at the American shoreline by a handful of American lawyers working for free, an effort that continues and ensures that no American – no matter how controversial their speech and regardless of ability to pay – who is engaged in constitutionally protected speech and conduct will go without a defense. Ofcom seems to be willing, at this juncture, to make it personal – I’ve never seen a regulator criticize the other side’s lawyer for his personal opinions in formal enforcement correspondence, or try to spin a reservation of rights letter or a blog post into an X-ray device purporting to see what advice has been given within the seal of the attorney-client relationship. But this is no ordinary case; the UK bet the house, politically speaking, on this unworkable censorship law taking out this one target, and, as expected by anyone who understands how the Internet or cross-border law practice works, it isn’t working and the target remains. The regulator has been given the unenviable task of making it work anyway. Now, following NGO pressure, Parliamentary pressure, and a completely unexplainable policy reversal that coincides neatly with that pressure, the enforcement action bears the unwashable stain of political interference. This comes to me as no surprise; all censorship of unpopular speech invariably is political, something Americans understand very well – and which the First Amendment was designed to forever abolish in our country. Here, though, Ofcom’s about-face under pressure from UK pressure groups, and having that pressure compounded by direct pressure from the House of Commons, far from intimidating Americans in this matter, only confirms to us that our position is right. We don’t tolerate politically motivated censorship in America. It does, of course, occur from time to time. When it does, our legal system gives American lawyers the tools we need to repel it. The fact that Parliament itself now calls for an American to be destroyed for the simple exercise of their constitutional rights confirms to me that the fight against foreign censorship is one we must win. 6 January investigation updateDownload ### Share this: * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * ### Like this: Like Loading...

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