Free speech is dying in much of Europe and in the so-called “free world.” The United Kingdom recently announced its intentions to fine or even ban X, the social media platform, over deepfakes, a sign that things may get worse before they get better.
Fox News reported on Monday that U.K “ministers confirmed a possible ban on Elon Musk’s social media platform X amid a widening probe and with the company potentially incurring hefty fines.”
This move, according to Fox News, “follows the launch of a formal investigation by Ofcom, the U.K. communications regulator, into whether X breached its legal duties under the U.K.’s Online Safety Act and came after reports that the platform’s built-in AI chatbot, Grok, was used to generate and share sexualized deepfake images of women and children.”
The U.K.’s Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said in the House of Commons Monday that the move against X and its “Grok” AI “is not, as some would claim, about restricting freedom of speech” and that a potential ban is all just about “upholding basic British values of decency and respect, and ensuring that the standards that we expect offline are upheld online.”
Sorry, that’s a little tough to believe.
The Wall Street Journal criticized the U.K.’s move against X in a recent editorial. While the Grok feature to “create AI smut is gross,” the Journal noted, that “…doesn’t mean British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is right to pick this fight, which smacks of selective censorship.”
Musk insists that Grok prevents inappropriate underage images and that the only exception is the “adversarial hacking of Grok,” which would be fixed immediately.
Other AI programs, the Journal explained, allow similar image changes and manipulation to Grok. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that “Mr. Starmer is targeting X because Mr. Musk has taken an unflattering interest in Mr. Starmer’s leadership.”
And the U.K. has certainly racked up a notorious record on speech in recent years as Musk has been eager to point out.
That staggering stat of speech-related arrests in the U.K comes from a freedom of information request from The Times, which reported in April that 12,183 people were arrested under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 in 2023. So, about 30 arrests a day. The total arrests number was actually down slightly from 2022.
Now, not all—or even most—of these arrests led to imprisonment. However, it’s clear that to even comment on what could be considered “controversial” (immigration or transgenderism) invites the possibility of arrest, even if the comments were made outside the country.
One retired police officer was arrested for denouncing antisemitism. While he was being detained the officers pointed out that his bookshelves contained “very Brexit-y things.”
Funny, because Brexit is the law of the land.
Given that dubious record, it’s hard to take at face value that the Starmer government’s turn against X is only about photo manipulation or protecting women and children.
So, let’s cut to the chase of what this is all about.
The U.K.’s crackdown on X is not about protecting their people from deepfakes, and it’s certainly not about “democracy.” It’s about controlling speech.
It’s about ensuring that the government’s established narrative about immigration and many other issues is ultimately controlled by the state.
This is why they continue to mass import immigrants from countries with significant ties to terrorism, yet block immigration critics on the Right from entering the country.
On Wednesday, Eva Vlaardingerbroek, a Dutch political commentator who warns about the dangers of unlimited immigration, announced on X that she had been prohibited from entering the U.K.
She wasn’t even given the chance to appeal because her presence was not considered to be “conducive to the public good.”
Just days earlier she had criticized Starmer on, you guessed it, X.
“Keir Starmer wants to crack down on X under the pretence [sic] of ‘women’s safety’, whilst he’s the one allowing the ongoing rape and killing of British girls by migrant rape gangs. Evil, despicable man,” she wrote on Friday. She was referring to the Pakistani “groomer gang” scandal that has been downplayed by the U.K.’s Labour Party.
The Trump administration has certainly taken note of the U.K.’s censorious turn.
U.S. Under Secretary of State Sarah B. Rogers blasted the U.K.’s decision to block the entrance of immigration critics into their country.
Rogers has said in an interview with the U.K-based GB News that the U.S. is prepared to use its “full range of tools” against “authoritarian, closed societies where the Government bans [X].” That would potentially include the current government of the U.K.
As I’ve written before, it is important to put pressure on allies looking to closely cooperate with the U.S. but appear to be going in the direction of our authoritarian rivals.
Our “special relationship” with the U.K. and deep connection we have to Western, European nations won’t long survive if their speech policies become like Iran or China’s.
Banning X, as China has, would be a serious abridgement of free speech and would be considered a serious shot at the U.S.
The Trump administration’s National Security Strategy document published in December even mentioned that the U.S. “will oppose elite-driven, anti-democratic restrictions on core liberties in Europe, the Anglosphere, and the rest of the democratic world, especially among our allies.”
Hopefully Starmer and company will see the light and back away from what would ultimately be a disastrous attempt to ban X. At the very least, President Donald Trump and his administration won’t stay quiet about it.
