Britain Declares War on the Open Internet

The British Empire may have vanished from maps, but it’s quietly reasserting itself in the one place no one voted for: the internet. Ofcom’s recent decision to investigate 4chan and several file-sharing platforms under the Online Safety Act signals an aggressive push to extend British authority far beyond its own borders.

These platforms aren’t British. They have no staff, servers, or legal presence in the UK, yet that hasn’t stopped Britain from claiming jurisdiction. 4chan, in particular, operates under American law, is hosted on American servers, and is owned by a Japanese national. But because Brits can access it, Ofcom insists it falls within its reach.

This is not domestic policy. It is extraterritorial ambition. And if this stands, the ripple effects won’t stop at Westminster. If the UK can police what people see online based solely on geography, then why shouldn’t China do the same with X? Why shouldn’t Iran demand Instagram remove posts about women’s rights? Why wouldn’t Russia insist Facebook delete anything critical of the war in Ukraine? The precedent is clear: all you need is a user in your territory and a taste for control. But the term “illegal content” is deliberately broad. It includes not only what is clearly criminal, but also material that might “encourage or assist” undefined offences.

Such language allows regulators to act not according to fixed principles but to shifting political preferences. In this context, caution becomes the rule. Any platform hoping to avoid fines or legal trouble will choose to remove content rather than challenge a vague accusation. Over-censorship becomes standard procedure.

This approach warps the open nature of the internet. Content is no longer shaped by users, community norms, or domestic law but by whichever government is most willing to threaten bans, fines, or prosecution. Britain isn’t alone in this. The EU’s Digital Services Act, Germany’s NetzDG, and Australia’s Online Safety Act follow a similar path. But the UK goes further, not just regulating platforms with a footprint in the country, but targeting any site British users can access, regardless of whether it has offices, servers, or revenue streams on UK soil. Access alone, in Britain’s view, now equals jurisdiction.

As more governments adopt this playbook, platforms will face impossible choices. One country will demand content be taken down, while another will insist it stay up. Platforms — especially global ones — will be forced to choose between access and compliance. Most will choose access, which means the most restrictive law often wins.

This could result in a kind of preemptive censorship, where platforms remove content not because it breaks their rules, but because somewhere, someone’s government might take offense. In such a world, the global internet would start to reflect not its freest societies, but its most fragile and authoritarian ones.

Smaller platforms couldn’t survive this. They don’t have compliance departments or legal teams on standby. Many would shut down or geo-block entire countries just to stay afloat. The internet would become smaller, “safer”, and significantly duller. The winners would be massive tech firms that can afford to play by a hundred different rulebooks at once.

The irony is hard to miss. The country that gave us Monty Python and The Sex Pistols now wants to bubble-wrap the internet. Britain once mastered the art of irreverence; mocking power, deflating arrogance, and ridiculing bureaucratic nonsense. Now it churns out speech codes, risk assessments, and online safety protocols. The Ministry of Silly Walks is now The Ministry of Silly Speech Laws.

The threat of being banned from the UK market — or fined millions — creates a powerful incentive to comply. Enforcement may be flimsy, but the pressure is real. And if one country succeeds, others will follow. The principle of territorial restraint, one of the few norms that once kept the internet open, is already beginning to erode. The illusion of a borderless internet collapses once jurisdiction is disconnected from physical presence. What takes its place is a patchwork of national internets — fragmented, censored, and shaped by the most aggressive regulators in the room.

Britain’s move isn’t a footnote. It’s a test case. If democratic nations begin regulating the global web solely based on user access, the ideal of an open internet won’t survive. The internet was revolutionary because it ignored borders, allowing ideas to move freely across nations, cultures, and ideologies. It gave anyone, anywhere, the power to speak, challenge, question, and learn. The Online Safety Act, and laws like it, threaten that foundation.

Tech companies must stop pretending these demands are harmless. Civil society must call out overreach for what it is. Users must understand that when governments promise “safety”, they often mean control. Britain is no longer exporting troops; it’s exporting speech codes. The frontier has changed, but the instinct remains: to rule beyond its borders, this time through regulation rather than empire. If this approach goes unchallenged, it won’t stop with Britain. Others will copy it, citing “harm”, “disinformation”, or “public order”.

Either we defend the internet as a place of global freedom, or we watch it become just another tool of local power, shaped by whoever shouts loudest. Britain has shown its hand, and the rest of the world should respond with a middle finger.