A quick-ish update about the Ofcom case while we (still) await yet anther Ninth Circuit Decision regarding the Guard in Portland. (Supposedly the deadline is in an hour.........)
Edit to add a related article from Michael Shellenberger:
"In the spring of 2022, former President Barack Obama gave a major policy address at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center, where he laid out a sweeping proposal for government censorship of social media platforms through the Platform Accountability and Transparency Act. Six days later, President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security announced that it had created a “Disinformation Governance Board” to serve as an Orwellian Ministry of Truth with the clear goal of controlling the information Americans could access online."
Second edit to add -- the Portland decision is out and the Ninth Circuit will re-hear the case "en banc", which means a "full" panel of 11 judges instead of 3.
Here it is, although it literally just says the court will re-hear the case:
Third edit to add the primary sources to a future article. This drop outlines how the legal cases against Trump were coordinated with the Biden administration. (Duh.)
198 pages, mostly internal email communications.
Not sure exactly when I'll get around to writing about it, but if you want a headstart, dive in!
Stuff that wasn't quite interesting enough for the article:
Ofcom apparently sends all correspondence via email, relying on third-party confirmation of delivery instead of actually "serving" the papers like we normally see in America. To me this seems like a highly sophisticated, government-sponsored phishing scam.
"You owe us money! Pay up and we won't shut you down!"
How can this be spun so that congress can call this an act of war? Then the military could go in and save the Entire Commonwealth from the Crown. Bonus points if we helped kick out all of their illegals too.
There's an entry about "harmful online content" that says: "If you, or someone you know, have been affected by illegal, harmful or upsetting content online, please contact a support service to find information and get help."
How about we exercise the legal precedent as set under the Case of "Goose vs Gander"
If the UK wants to act in this way...fine...but in return EVERY SINGLE MEMBER of Ofcom will now be tried In Absentia by the U.S. for Criminal Civil Rights Violations notably the right to Free Speech.
UK: "Here's your fine"
US: "Here's your arrest warrant, hands behind your back, you have the right to remain silent....."
"The UK doesn’t get to determine what Americans are allowed to say." Absolutely. And... the UK doesn't get to determine what British people are allowed to say. Except the Starmer Stasi are hard at work arresting people for saying naughty words, or just normal words they don't like, or even sharing inconvenient govt data.
Side observation that poked into my head while reading, that probably won’t be popular 🤣: I never thought I’d praise and admire “lawyers”. But I’m thankful for the ones who see their fortunate financial positions as a responsibility to their fellow citizens to take on pro-bono cases that profoundly matter to us all. The tireless work is commendable. (Ew, should I shower now?) But seriously, we owe so many of the selfless ones deep gratitude for fighting this kind of sh*t on behalf of those who have neither the financial means to do so nor the skills. We need more of them to step up to the plate as their work matters and in the end will be their true legacy.
I can imagine american companies complying with censorship laws worldwide since they have always tried to apply such of their own making, and since they already do so.
Google gives very different results dep. on the language used in the search after all, and Youtube censors in English what you can say Arabic or Thai.
Or just look at movie posters. John Boyega's character was shrunk on posters in China, since Boyega is black. Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman in the Middle East. That's just two examples, and it's not as if there's going to be rainbow-parades in the Disney-branded park that's to be built in Dubai or whichever Gulf State it was.
And that's American companies complying with foreign censorship laws, abroad, which they must do to do business. And I'm all for (with lots of caveats about said laws...) complying with domestic laws, that's not the issue.
But the ugly backside is, the companies then bring this attitude home with them and their foreign investors starts making demands via the boardroom and politics - AIPAC is a case in point, though it is fully political, it serves purpose. Do they champion free speech, freedom of opinion or free research into issues near and dear to their agenda? No way, José. Or the NBA and other sports-organisations currently undergoing an upheaval for rigging games and betting and odds and so on.
But what's that to do with freedom of speech? Corporate NDAs and secrecy and not having to be fully transparent with their paperwork unless there's been years of legal ballet and goings on has created a climate where corporations feel they get to regulate what may be said, not just under internal guidelines for porfessionalism but regulate speech and opinion period.
Perhaps it is my different perspective on this, coming at the issue from a different experience. Just wanted to add a possible different viewpoint on all this, and try to shine a light on that the issue isn't new but goes back to the end of the Cold War and the onset of globalisation.
Ironic? Or prima facie evidence of mental illness? The reality is that America was born of a people's will to speak freely. Seems to me my third or fourth grade history covered some happenings around 1763 -1783 that made that point. Rather clearly!
And if "these places" have managed to ignore that reality for over 250 years...
There was something called the American Revolutionary War that the UK government has forgotten about. Or more accurately, they have been evaluating our conditions in the U.S. and thought it would be a good time to overturn the results of said Revolution. With the complicity of Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama, and all their anti-American associates in the international ruling class. Time for Trump and Vance to make another clear statement to all of them about leaving the UK and its allies to fight their own battles without our help.
4 Chan is famous for having punked the legacy media on a few occasions, hoping they are preparing one for ofcom. If so, it'll be hilarious! That, or they'll dig up all kinds of dirt on the evil doer's and publish it to the world. I can pretty much guarantee, 4 Chan is a lot smarter than the bureaucrats in any government.
See, this is why I could never be a lawyer, I'm simply too intemperate to not reply to such things with "This party strongly encourages OfCom to eat our ass raw with salt. Feel free to fine us twenty *trillion* pounds, you're never seeing a godsdamned cent, and you're welcome to come over and try to claim it from us, at which point we will pay the fine with *lead* delivered at a thousand meters per second. Fuck you, fuck your mother, and fuck you again. Molon labe, bitches."
If Ofcom had its authority back then, I don't see how it couldn't.
Edit to add -- here's a related passage from Byrne's site:
---------
Ofcom’s assertion that UK rules hold sway on US turf is laughable. It is, however, also entirely consistent with the UK legal doctrine known as parliamentary supremacy, which holds that the UK Parliament has theoretically unlimited power. The infinite character of that power was most famously summed up by English lawyer Sir Ivor Jennings, who once said that “if Parliament enacts that smoking in the streets of Paris is an offence, then it is an offence”.
This line is taught to every first-year English law student, and presumably is part of the kernel for most of the UK government’s legal strategists on that side of the pond.
Absurd or not, that’s the rule. This means that the UK could enact a law that says that the entire world has to genuinely believe that 2+2 = 5 or that the Moon is made of cheese and every man, woman, and child in the entire world would, again theoretically, have to obey it. It could also pass a law, as it has in the form of the Online Safety Act 2023, that says its censorship codes apply in the United States and override the U.S. Constitution, and its censorship agency has the power to enforce those codes in America.
Both of aforementioned laws, one hypothetical and one real, are equally ridiculous and not based in reality.
They are thinking they are still living in the, what 1600/1700/1800s(?), when they WERE powerful. I'd be happy to see the US government invite them to do everything for themselves without ANY help from the USA.
Byrne needs to simply write back that English jurisprudence lost all authority over this territory, it's citizens and institutions, in 1783 with the Treaty of Paris, and the King and Parliament can suck eggs.
Fuck, why limit it to British exports *to the United States*? They clearly don't believe that *their* powers are limited by their borders.
Potential Trump: "And so, today, we are announcing a 10,000% Tariff on all British exports to anywhere on the planet. And *we* have the guns to back it up."
I mean, I'm sure they export something to somewhere. My point was that w should put a tariff on their exports to *anywhere*. They wanna export something to Poland? They have to pay a tariff to the USA.
Their courts clearly *think this is fine* as evidenced by this ruling.
LOL!! Good point! It's hilarious that this little country that is going bankrupt from supporting illegal foreigners thinks it has enough leverage to threaten anybody. Maybe they believe that Obama and Hilary will be all the troops they need to win.
I have never developed a taste for it, but I recently learned that the Irish and Scottish colonists in southern Pennsylvania and Maryland produced very fine whiskey. They adapted the original Irish and Scottish formulas to the grains that grew best in those areas. People came from all over to drink and buy them, as they currently do at our West Coast wineries. Certain individuals became famous for the whiskeys they produced and wealthy as a result, if they weren’t before they started. Men of means recruited talented whiskey makers to live on their property, where they grew the grain that was used to make the whiskeys, and where they might provide an inn for visiting buyers.
When I researched “Pennsylvania Whiskey” (the focus of the Whiskey Rebellion), I found that there is a revival of interest in making those product lines, along with those produced in Maryland during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. So, you might just have to adapt the way the Celtic colonists did, and we will start buying American again and love it.
Any company that the UK considers is breaking their laws, and that refuses to pay any fines or censor content to comport with the UK rules, runs the risk of being blocked in the UK. Without that threat, I don't see any reason why foreign companies should pay any fines to Ofcom or the EU.
If Internet companies refused to play ball, imagine how the UK public would react if all of a sudden they lost access to all the biggest social media platforms.
This happened with Twitter in Brazil, didn't it? Brazil blocked them. In that case Elon surrendered, because he wasn't willing to sacrifice such a huge market. Or at least that was my superficial understanding.
Basically, it's a game of chicken.
Of course, there could be all kinds of considerations that I know nothing about.
There's a video I posted in a previous article about this where the Ofcom woman is lamenting that it would be a tragedy if the "normal" services were blocked in the UK, it might be the proper move for "riskier" sites.
If I owned a social media company like Twitter, I'd lock them out 100% as soon as they threatened me. I don't negotiate with terrorists.
Exactly. That's why I was so surprised that Elon relented in Brazil. Like I said, who knows what's going on behind the scenes. But if you have more money than gawd, you could tell Brazil or the UK to go climb their thumb. Too many people are hooked on Xwitter these days, and I bet there would be a lot of pressure from the populace—pitchforks and torches and so forth.
You saw some of this worry in the Twitter/Facebook files - those companies were worried that if they gave in to the current demands, those demands would increase in scope and severity. (They were correct, obviously)
Perhaps they're more worried about it than they are letting on in public.
A quick-ish update about the Ofcom case while we (still) await yet anther Ninth Circuit Decision regarding the Guard in Portland. (Supposedly the deadline is in an hour.........)
Edit to add a related article from Michael Shellenberger:
https://www.public.news/p/exclusive-obama-linked-stanford-center
"In the spring of 2022, former President Barack Obama gave a major policy address at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center, where he laid out a sweeping proposal for government censorship of social media platforms through the Platform Accountability and Transparency Act. Six days later, President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security announced that it had created a “Disinformation Governance Board” to serve as an Orwellian Ministry of Truth with the clear goal of controlling the information Americans could access online."
Second edit to add -- the Portland decision is out and the Ninth Circuit will re-hear the case "en banc", which means a "full" panel of 11 judges instead of 3.
Here it is, although it literally just says the court will re-hear the case:
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca9.b3c1c6b0-b390-4c9d-b557-fc5d525fd150/gov.uscourts.ca9.b3c1c6b0-b390-4c9d-b557-fc5d525fd150.89.0.pdf
Third edit to add the primary sources to a future article. This drop outlines how the legal cases against Trump were coordinated with the Biden administration. (Duh.)
198 pages, mostly internal email communications.
Not sure exactly when I'll get around to writing about it, but if you want a headstart, dive in!
https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/2025-11/FBI-HJC119-AF-000001-000198.pdf
Stuff that wasn't quite interesting enough for the article:
Ofcom apparently sends all correspondence via email, relying on third-party confirmation of delivery instead of actually "serving" the papers like we normally see in America. To me this seems like a highly sophisticated, government-sponsored phishing scam.
"You owe us money! Pay up and we won't shut you down!"
Sophisticated, modern hamsters, sleeping on emails. (Chomsky??)
"Surely the Brits could build their own Twitter, right?"
If Americans built their own country, why can't Britain acknowledge that and leave us alone?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNYNe7p3szM
How can this be spun so that congress can call this an act of war? Then the military could go in and save the Entire Commonwealth from the Crown. Bonus points if we helped kick out all of their illegals too.
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-content/video-sharing-platforms
There's an entry about "harmful online content" that says: "If you, or someone you know, have been affected by illegal, harmful or upsetting content online, please contact a support service to find information and get help."
The very name Ofcom sounds quite Soviet.
How about we exercise the legal precedent as set under the Case of "Goose vs Gander"
If the UK wants to act in this way...fine...but in return EVERY SINGLE MEMBER of Ofcom will now be tried In Absentia by the U.S. for Criminal Civil Rights Violations notably the right to Free Speech.
UK: "Here's your fine"
US: "Here's your arrest warrant, hands behind your back, you have the right to remain silent....."
"The UK doesn’t get to determine what Americans are allowed to say." Absolutely. And... the UK doesn't get to determine what British people are allowed to say. Except the Starmer Stasi are hard at work arresting people for saying naughty words, or just normal words they don't like, or even sharing inconvenient govt data.
Side observation that poked into my head while reading, that probably won’t be popular 🤣: I never thought I’d praise and admire “lawyers”. But I’m thankful for the ones who see their fortunate financial positions as a responsibility to their fellow citizens to take on pro-bono cases that profoundly matter to us all. The tireless work is commendable. (Ew, should I shower now?) But seriously, we owe so many of the selfless ones deep gratitude for fighting this kind of sh*t on behalf of those who have neither the financial means to do so nor the skills. We need more of them to step up to the plate as their work matters and in the end will be their true legacy.
The British are coming!!!
I can imagine american companies complying with censorship laws worldwide since they have always tried to apply such of their own making, and since they already do so.
Google gives very different results dep. on the language used in the search after all, and Youtube censors in English what you can say Arabic or Thai.
Or just look at movie posters. John Boyega's character was shrunk on posters in China, since Boyega is black. Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman in the Middle East. That's just two examples, and it's not as if there's going to be rainbow-parades in the Disney-branded park that's to be built in Dubai or whichever Gulf State it was.
And that's American companies complying with foreign censorship laws, abroad, which they must do to do business. And I'm all for (with lots of caveats about said laws...) complying with domestic laws, that's not the issue.
But the ugly backside is, the companies then bring this attitude home with them and their foreign investors starts making demands via the boardroom and politics - AIPAC is a case in point, though it is fully political, it serves purpose. Do they champion free speech, freedom of opinion or free research into issues near and dear to their agenda? No way, José. Or the NBA and other sports-organisations currently undergoing an upheaval for rigging games and betting and odds and so on.
But what's that to do with freedom of speech? Corporate NDAs and secrecy and not having to be fully transparent with their paperwork unless there's been years of legal ballet and goings on has created a climate where corporations feel they get to regulate what may be said, not just under internal guidelines for porfessionalism but regulate speech and opinion period.
Perhaps it is my different perspective on this, coming at the issue from a different experience. Just wanted to add a possible different viewpoint on all this, and try to shine a light on that the issue isn't new but goes back to the end of the Cold War and the onset of globalisation.
It is kind of ironic that these places set up much of this censorship apparatus thinking that we'd be playing along with it.
Ironic? Or prima facie evidence of mental illness? The reality is that America was born of a people's will to speak freely. Seems to me my third or fourth grade history covered some happenings around 1763 -1783 that made that point. Rather clearly!
And if "these places" have managed to ignore that reality for over 250 years...
There was something called the American Revolutionary War that the UK government has forgotten about. Or more accurately, they have been evaluating our conditions in the U.S. and thought it would be a good time to overturn the results of said Revolution. With the complicity of Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama, and all their anti-American associates in the international ruling class. Time for Trump and Vance to make another clear statement to all of them about leaving the UK and its allies to fight their own battles without our help.
4 Chan is famous for having punked the legacy media on a few occasions, hoping they are preparing one for ofcom. If so, it'll be hilarious! That, or they'll dig up all kinds of dirt on the evil doer's and publish it to the world. I can pretty much guarantee, 4 Chan is a lot smarter than the bureaucrats in any government.
My dogs are "a lot smarter than the bureaucrats in any government." One of them has dementia, that says a lot about the bureaucrats.
Agreed. I didn't know dogs could have dementia? Hopefully, he/she hasn't forgotten the bathroom is Outside? 😁👍
The bathroom is wherever he is, at the time. 😢
*makes "OK" sign*
See, this is why I could never be a lawyer, I'm simply too intemperate to not reply to such things with "This party strongly encourages OfCom to eat our ass raw with salt. Feel free to fine us twenty *trillion* pounds, you're never seeing a godsdamned cent, and you're welcome to come over and try to claim it from us, at which point we will pay the fine with *lead* delivered at a thousand meters per second. Fuck you, fuck your mother, and fuck you again. Molon labe, bitches."
Shit, now I wonder if British courts accept amicus briefs.
Wouldn't Ofcom's logic in 4.4 apply to an American magazine publisher in 1975 that had some British subscribers?
If Ofcom had its authority back then, I don't see how it couldn't.
Edit to add -- here's a related passage from Byrne's site:
---------
Ofcom’s assertion that UK rules hold sway on US turf is laughable. It is, however, also entirely consistent with the UK legal doctrine known as parliamentary supremacy, which holds that the UK Parliament has theoretically unlimited power. The infinite character of that power was most famously summed up by English lawyer Sir Ivor Jennings, who once said that “if Parliament enacts that smoking in the streets of Paris is an offence, then it is an offence”.
This line is taught to every first-year English law student, and presumably is part of the kernel for most of the UK government’s legal strategists on that side of the pond.
Absurd or not, that’s the rule. This means that the UK could enact a law that says that the entire world has to genuinely believe that 2+2 = 5 or that the Moon is made of cheese and every man, woman, and child in the entire world would, again theoretically, have to obey it. It could also pass a law, as it has in the form of the Online Safety Act 2023, that says its censorship codes apply in the United States and override the U.S. Constitution, and its censorship agency has the power to enforce those codes in America.
Both of aforementioned laws, one hypothetical and one real, are equally ridiculous and not based in reality.
They are thinking they are still living in the, what 1600/1700/1800s(?), when they WERE powerful. I'd be happy to see the US government invite them to do everything for themselves without ANY help from the USA.
And when you get in trouble for doing something in Canada, remember, it's still officially ruled by the British.
Byrne needs to simply write back that English jurisprudence lost all authority over this territory, it's citizens and institutions, in 1783 with the Treaty of Paris, and the King and Parliament can suck eggs.
LOL he did that in the last round of correspondence!
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cFyg!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F477f0d8f-21a6-47c3-ad36-0bd1a63b84ec_568x157.png
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!LP1C!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fae98c514-389a-4917-b816-2c0543faa43c_599x209.png
Law, without State violence to back it, is a poorly run con.
Sounds like it’s time for a 50% tariff. Gives room to go to 100%
Even a 100% tariff leaves room for a 500% tariff.
Fuck, why limit it to British exports *to the United States*? They clearly don't believe that *their* powers are limited by their borders.
Potential Trump: "And so, today, we are announcing a 10,000% Tariff on all British exports to anywhere on the planet. And *we* have the guns to back it up."
Does the UK export anything that we need?
I mean, I'm sure they export something to somewhere. My point was that w should put a tariff on their exports to *anywhere*. They wanna export something to Poland? They have to pay a tariff to the USA.
Their courts clearly *think this is fine* as evidenced by this ruling.
LOL!! Good point! It's hilarious that this little country that is going bankrupt from supporting illegal foreigners thinks it has enough leverage to threaten anybody. Maybe they believe that Obama and Hilary will be all the troops they need to win.
Whiskey.
But I can do without Highland whiskey for a while, until the next William Wallace shows up.
"I can do without Highland whiskey"
Let's not get carried away!
Perhaps we could work a deal...
I have never developed a taste for it, but I recently learned that the Irish and Scottish colonists in southern Pennsylvania and Maryland produced very fine whiskey. They adapted the original Irish and Scottish formulas to the grains that grew best in those areas. People came from all over to drink and buy them, as they currently do at our West Coast wineries. Certain individuals became famous for the whiskeys they produced and wealthy as a result, if they weren’t before they started. Men of means recruited talented whiskey makers to live on their property, where they grew the grain that was used to make the whiskeys, and where they might provide an inn for visiting buyers.
When I researched “Pennsylvania Whiskey” (the focus of the Whiskey Rebellion), I found that there is a revival of interest in making those product lines, along with those produced in Maryland during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. So, you might just have to adapt the way the Celtic colonists did, and we will start buying American again and love it.
Tea. 😉😊😋😂🤣😂🤣
LOL!! If we are going to circle back to the beginning we might as well "throw in the tea." LOLOL!!
No reason to stop there......
IANAL, but it seems pretty simple to me.
Any company that the UK considers is breaking their laws, and that refuses to pay any fines or censor content to comport with the UK rules, runs the risk of being blocked in the UK. Without that threat, I don't see any reason why foreign companies should pay any fines to Ofcom or the EU.
If Internet companies refused to play ball, imagine how the UK public would react if all of a sudden they lost access to all the biggest social media platforms.
This happened with Twitter in Brazil, didn't it? Brazil blocked them. In that case Elon surrendered, because he wasn't willing to sacrifice such a huge market. Or at least that was my superficial understanding.
Basically, it's a game of chicken.
Of course, there could be all kinds of considerations that I know nothing about.
There's a video I posted in a previous article about this where the Ofcom woman is lamenting that it would be a tragedy if the "normal" services were blocked in the UK, it might be the proper move for "riskier" sites.
If I owned a social media company like Twitter, I'd lock them out 100% as soon as they threatened me. I don't negotiate with terrorists.
🙌 Amen!
Exactly. That's why I was so surprised that Elon relented in Brazil. Like I said, who knows what's going on behind the scenes. But if you have more money than gawd, you could tell Brazil or the UK to go climb their thumb. Too many people are hooked on Xwitter these days, and I bet there would be a lot of pressure from the populace—pitchforks and torches and so forth.
IIRC, Brazil (thru Moraes?-the judge) was threatening Tesla and other musk companies as well. Believe that was Greenwald’s take.
I believe you're correct because that's what I remember as well. He called them "related companies" based on Musk's ownership.
You saw some of this worry in the Twitter/Facebook files - those companies were worried that if they gave in to the current demands, those demands would increase in scope and severity. (They were correct, obviously)
Perhaps they're more worried about it than they are letting on in public.