Why does Britain think it can censor Gab?

A dramatic escalation has happened in the information war between the US and Europe. Ofcom, the British media regulator that fancies itself as a global censor, has made a move.

Ofcom sent a formal demand to Gab – an American social media platform with no legal presence in Britain – threatening it with ruinous fines unless it complied with the UK’s Online Safety Act. Gab’s reply to Ofcom was not polite. It was cold, clinical and lethal. Through its lawyers, Gab told Ofcom – with legal precision and unmistakable clarity – to get lost.

This isn’t some polite regulatory disagreement. This is a warning shot, delivered with the full backing of the US Constitution and echoed by the Trump administration which has made it very clear indeed that it is not in the slightest bit interested in playing nice with European speech police, and that includes Ofcom.

Gab’s reply to Ofcom’s demands, shared publicly by its CEO on X, is worth reading in full. “My client is a US company with no presence outside of the United States,” it begins. “The most fundamental of America’s laws – the First Amendment to our Constitution – ensures Gab’s right to provide a service that allows anyone, anywhere, to receive and impart political opinions of any kind, free from state interference, on its US-based servers.” Translation: you have no jurisdiction.

Ofcom threatened Gab with massive fines – $20 million or 10 percent of the company’s annual revenue – for failing to police speech under the UK’s Online Safety Act. Gab’s letter in response cuts straight to what is the US position: “The Act is, at its core, a censorship law.” And the US, particularly under Trump, will not turn a blind eye.

Since the Trump administration, Executive Order 14149 of January 20, 2025, makes it official US policy that no United States agency is to cooperate with foreign governments in censoring American citizens. Not only that, but the US will now use tariffs as a weapon to combat digital censorship – a measure enshrined in a Presidential Memorandum dated February 21, 2025.

In case Ofcom missed the point, Gab spells it out clearly: “Accordingly my client will, today, be referring this matter to the US Trade Representative and the US Department of Justice for further action.”

This is not a snub. It’s a declaration of lawfare. The Online Safety Act gives Ofcom sweeping powers to compel online services to remove content deemed harmful or offensive to UK users. These powers are being extended to platforms with no legal nexus in Britain whatsoever.

To be clear, Gab is no corporate Goliath. It is a niche, controversial platform known primarily for its absolutist stance on free expression. But that’s exactly what makes this story so significant. In attempting to impose its rules on an American company with no UK servers, and no UK office, Ofcom has shown it is both overreaching and underthinking.

This is extraterritorial legal adventurism of the most embarrassing kind. They are behaving not like a regulator but like a mid-level Eurocrat who thinks they can run the world from an office in London.

Britain already has a reputation in the US for cracking down on free speech – an issue Vice President J.D. Vance has flagged repeatedly.

Now, a British regulator is trying to export that censorship model across the Atlantic. For many in America, this will be a red flag to a bull. There is no chance that Gab will comply. There is every chance that the Trump administration will respond.

This is not just about Gab. It is about a wider shift: a shift that is already provoking transatlantic friction. In Brussels, the EU’s Digital Services Act has sparked similar pushback. American lawmakers, even centrist ones, are growing increasingly impatient with what they see as European digital overreach. Now, Britain – which left the EU ostensibly to escape such meddling – is attempting to play mini-Brussels.

Britain used to be the country that understood liberty. Now it is exporting censorship and importing diplomatic humiliation. Ofcom has no business trying to regulate speech in the United States. It is time Ofcom is told – firmly and finally – to stay in its lane.