The Highwire with Del Bigtree - FREE SPEECH UNDER SIEGE

Episode Date: August 27, 2025

Basic freedoms are under threat in the Western world, as the EU’s Digital Services Act and the UK’s Online Safety Act raise concerns about Orwellian-style censorship—regulations that could extend across the Atlantic, impacting American citizens and businesses alike.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

Freedom is ringing here, but throughout the rest of the world, it's closing in. It's getting dark. The Digital Service Act in the United Kingdom, I'm sorry, across all of the European Union, was kind of the first shot across the bow. And that was basically to hold digital platforms accountable for user safety. Safety from what you ask? Disinformation, harm, these nebulous terms that no one really can define clearly, but There are, there's, there's censorship by any other means.

And now in the UK, that's coming to a finer point. We have this test case. And we saw headlines like this just as just February. So just beginning of this year, hundreds charged with online speech crimes under Orwellian crackdown. So we're seeing people now in the UK and actual police task forces that are that are tasked with going after people for what they post and the words they post or memes they post online. And people are getting arrested by, by the week for this in the UK. So when we sit here in the United States and we think, this is fine,

like on to the next thing. No, this is a pause. This is a brief pause. This is a window that we have. This is a gift that the rest of the world is looking to and saying, we need to help here because our governments are not paying attention. It's still COVID. It's still 2021 here. We're being censored. It's going further. Luckily in the U.S., we have our top leaders that are pushing back against the UK and what's going on. Take a look. All right. In Britain, an Across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat. We're seeing with legislation like the Online Safety Act, the Digital Services Act in the EU, is something very different. We are seeing a rising tide of censorship in the West.

We see it in the EU, we've seen it, we're seeing it in the UK. I know they don't have a First Amendment, but freedom of expression, right? And if that is eroded, if suddenly these become places where people are targeted because of what they said or what their opinion is, then one of the pillars of our shared interest is under attack. is under attack. We're concerned about free expression here in the United Kingdom and Europe, but we're primarily concerned about the impacts your laws can have on American citizens under the First

Amendment. And when the government infringes on that, like we're seeing with the Online Safety Act, that is a concern. 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, of course what the British do in their own country is up to them, but also affect American technology companies and by extension American citizens.

Our number one priority is Americans. So we don't want to see an American who happens to be living in London or happens to be living in Europe post something online about American politics or any politics and all of a sudden they're facing ramifications over there. What's the importance of free speech today? Well, free speech is very important. I don't know if you're referring to any place. in particular, perhaps they are.

But we've had free speech for a very, very long time here. So we're very proud about that. You know, I've been watching these videos. I've been watching these statements. The bold statements about freedom of speech, Jady Vance, inside the Oval Office, you know, calling Kirstarmer out. I've never been more proud, really, of America.

And more thankful that we avoided, you know, a furthering of the imprisonment that was taking place in this country in the authoritarian regime that believed and was selling this idea we're gonna stop misinformation. We've dodged a bullet for a short time here. It's brilliant to watch it. And I just hope it lasts forever. I mean, it is what we represent in America.

It's great when America stands up and celebrates its fantastic commitment to freedom. And that, of course, was Kier Starrmer in that clip, at the end of that clip, there and President Trump was saying, free speech, I don't know if you're talking about anybody in particular, this guy right here. So you see the headlines.

US greatly concerned about free speech in Britain, and we're seeing Rubio, we're seeing Jim Jordan, Trump, Banz, they're all kind of making really strong statements here. But also the State Department took to X and it said, this statement, this is the actual State Department. All the DSA protects is European leaders from their own people, that's a digital service act. That's across the European Union.

So you're seeing a stronger push even some social media marketing there from our state department so right now we have the online safety act that's in phase two over in the uk that started in july 25th and what that does if you look through that document and you search type the word harm it shows up uh 315 times and so harm is a subjective term so they're trying to regulate harm and safety which sounds great it's a great PR talking point but when you get down to it it what do you doing and it and it's a And it's an overlay of censorship because that's what it's actually doing in this. Why not they're casting to capture harms, you're actually censoring people.

And people are complying because why? They have an actual 10% of annual revenue is the penalty. So if you're talking Google or X or meta, that's a lot of money if you're not complying. So the government now is in total control of your platform with this purse strings. But also in the severe cases, executives or managers could be held liable. So this thing has massive teeth in it. And you have people, you have places like the Telegraph, their entire op-ed team, their editorial team is now coming out. And, you know, in the background, they were a little shy to really stand up for outright censorship like this.

Their whole op-ed team just wrote this, shut down Britain's Ministry of Truth. That's the Telegraph View and the byline. In an open and functioning society, the state does not use its powers to curb free speech on matters of national importance. Then you have other watchdog groups, new online. online safety loss, Savage by Washdog Group, they're calling it the silencing of a generation. That's the open rights group. So as soon as this online safety act went into effect,

you had, according to the BBC article here, you had 1,800% increase in the downloads of VPN. It was a virtual private networks. This is to hide your IP address. VPN's top downloaded charts as age verification law kicks in. And so we're talking about hiding criticism of European leaders from the public. Well, that's exactly what's happening in this censorship dragnet,

if we were just call it that. So we go to reclaim the net. They posted this article, UK Online Safety Act Censorship hits lawmakers political posts, which one. Well, one of them is Zara Sultana. She's a member of parliament, an MP. And it's a pretty milk toast, pretty benign posts here talking about building a new political party.

She says across the country, millions feel politically homeless, to counselors everywhere, are you really delivering the change Kirst Starmor promise? Well, if you look at the bottom of that, just kind of challenging their prime minister a little bit. Look at the bottom. It said, due to local laws, we're temporary restricting access to this content until X estimates your age. So gone, censored, throttle, shadowband. It's over because X is going to be fined and, you know, after Elon Musk like they have in the past for crimes of harm, I guess you want to say. So the public is standing up against this. There is a

that went online, it has well over 500,000 signatures at this point, this repeal the online safety act. And again, it's not just requiring mandatory age checks, ID checks. Companies have to adjust their algorithms. It also makes websites and social media companies because they have to do these age checks and these ID checks. It makes these companies become unwilling custodians of really sensitive information. So those become targets for hackers. It's a mess. And you, you know, You can see already the problem, this is why the U.S. really stepped in hard on this. The Internet is global, and countries' borders don't really matter anymore when it comes to the Internet and access to information.

So companies within the United States, the UK is reaching over the pond, as they say, and telling U.S. companies how to behave. Here's Spotify. Spotify now scans face for age verification. So we're not talking about violence, videos, or pornography. Spotify is words, is music. So, you know, here we hear of kids' face scanning. I think that's more dangerous having kids face scan into a digital biometric grid than listening to, I don't know, some music with some profanity in it.

But we have offcom. Offcom is actually the hammer. So when it comes to the enforcement arm of this Online Safety Act, Offcom is the UK's regulator. and they sent another U.S. company, a digital media platform, some warnings. This was Rumble. We're on there. We're streaming on there, and we have all our clips on there. Offcom pressured Rumble and Reddit to enforce these censorship laws, obviously beyond the borders. And there's emails now that have been released of what Offcom and Rumble have been talking about. So Rumble said, we're not going to comply to this because our U.K. audience is not very large,

and we don't think there is risks involved in what we do. Well, Offcom says we will be monitoring Rumble's position carefully and we'll be in touch should we become aware of anything that contradicts the above position. It says we would strongly encourage Rumble to take steps required by the Act to Protect UK users of Internet services. So, you know, it's a veiled threat there. And then also it goes on to say this. This is Offcom's ultimate goal. They admit it in this email. They say, we view a supervisory relationship between Offcom and a service as the most effective way to review and assess compliance with its safe.

in government's issue. So they're saying, off-coma, say, we want to supervise. We want to be the supervisor of your company in America. We find that to be the best way for us to help you. Wow. So they want full control. So even when we think that we're avoiding it, and I keep saying, you know, watch, you know, we're the only island in the middle of this authoritarian takeover.

It is starting to infect and get its fingers into our American businesses. And you have to imagine some businesses might just say, if I'm going to do facial recognition anyway. Let's just go ahead and have one platform. Everyone's face is being recognized whether you're in America or abroad. You know, why, you know, separate these two. And so it is what J.D. Vance and what Donald Trump and these people are saying publicly, Mark Rubio, we believe you are going to infect our right to freedom here in America. And that cannot be acceptable. So, and by the way, think about, you know, post Donald Trump and Robert Kennedy Jr. And the people that are holding this line right now, where are we at?

If we get, you know, if the Democratic Party continues to hold its agenda on this notion that it should be, you know, monitoring speech and ending, you know, misinformation as it is stated public. Is it going to change on that? I doubt it. Then where are we at? Then they have the whole world on their side. It's already switched. America just flips the switch. And then I think it's gone forever. Now you have a global agreement. And these are the things that loom on the horizon and why you and I are so outspoken and why the work that we do in courtrooms, I think, is so important.