#169 - Preston Byrne: The Lawyer Fighting Britain's Censorship Machine
Preston Byrne on the cross-border legal fight most people haven't noticed yet — the UK's attempt to enforce its censorship laws on American soil, and the one lawyer who's holding the line against it.
Recorded 2026. The hamster correspondence with Ofcom alone makes this one of the most quoted episodes in the feed.
TL;DR
American attorney Preston Byrne joins Peter McCormack to explain why the UK's Online Safety Act is not a domestic regulatory matter but a sovereignty conflict - one being fought, almost entirely, by a single American lawyer working pro bono. Byrne represents 4chan, Kiwi Farms, Gab and Sanctioned Suicide against Ofcom's attempts to fine and regulate them under British law. He argues the UK has crossed a structural threshold on speech: the political class no longer treats free expression as a default, the legal system has no framework to push back, and the British public is only now — twenty years late - beginning to realise what's been lost. He explains what this means for American companies, for British citizens, and for the people who assumed liberal democracy came with speech protections built in.
Guest
Preston Byrne is an American attorney specialising in free speech, internet law and cross-border regulatory disputes. British-trained and dual-qualified, he is one of a small number of US lawyers actively defending American companies against extraterritorial enforcement of UK censorship law. He is the principal author of a proposed UK Free Speech Bill and the GRANITE Act, a US state-level shield law against foreign censorship orders that passed the Wyoming House of Representatives in 2026.
The GRANITE Act (2026) · The UK Free Speech Bill (2026)
Episode Summary
Preston Byrne's argument is that Britain has slid into a censorship regime most of its own population has not yet recognised — and that the regime is now attempting to extend its jurisdiction into the United States. The Online Safety Act, passed in 2023, gave Ofcom the power to fine non-UK companies for hosting content lawful in their home jurisdictions. Byrne represents the first targets of that scheme. No major US law firm would take the cases. He took them pro bono and has, by his own account, been fighting essentially alone for over a year.
Byrne traces the British speech problem back well before the Online Safety Act. He marks his own awakening at a 2008 Scientology protest in London, where he watched a 16-year-old receive a criminal summons from the City of London Police for holding a sign reading "Scientology is a dangerous cult." That moment, he argues, was already a warning the country failed to read. Twenty years later, the praying woman, the trans-rights protesters, the bloggers visited by police for criticising the local force — these aren't aberrations. They're the system working as designed.
The conversation turns to what's actually happening at Ofcom. Byrne explains the regulator's claim to extraterritorial jurisdiction, why that claim collapses at the UK's twelve-mile coastline under American constitutional law, and why his clients have refused to pay any of the fines issued against them. He recounts the now-famous "hamster emails" — his correspondence with Ofcom on behalf of 4chan, in which he informed the regulator that their fine documents would be used as bedding for his client's pet hamster, Mr Whiskers — and explains why the joke was load-bearing.
The episode covers the constructive side of the work. Byrne is not just defending clients; he has drafted a UK Free Speech Bill modelled on the First Amendment but adapted to British constitutional tradition, and the GRANITE Act, a US state-level shield law that uses the £46 billion in UK assets held at the Federal Reserve as enforcement leverage. The Wyoming version passed the State House 46–12. Federal versions are under active consideration.
The final section covers the political economy: why no British political party has yet adopted a serious free speech position, why Reform is on the fence, why both left and right reach for censorship when their own enemies are speaking, and why Byrne — though British by descent and trained in English law — refuses to set foot on UK soil until the current government is out.
Chapters
00:00 — "I Was Not Prepared To Allow Them To Do That"
01:09 — The Cases No One Else Would Take
06:49 — The Sign That Started Everything
13:50 — What Ofcom Actually Is
17:09 — The Question Britain Has Never Asked
24:23 — Drafting A British First Amendment
31:56 — "I'm Not Setting Foot In The UK"
46:28 — "The System Is Designed To Produce Violations"
54:52 — Mr Whiskers Vs Ofcom
1:22:18 — The GRANITE Act, Explained
1:30:17 — "Are We A Free Country Anymore? No."
1:36:32 — What British Listeners Can Actually Do
Key Quotes
"The principle that the United Kingdom was trying to prove was that they could enforce British censorship law on American soil. And I was not prepared to allow them to do that." — Preston Byrne
"Do you want the British state to have the power to police the non-violent expression of opinion under any circumstances? That's the first question. Everything else is downstream of it." — Preston Byrne
"The system is not designed to be complied with. The system is designed to produce violations so that you can exercise political control over those platforms." — Preston Byrne
"You're not a free country until you get your rights back. And until you can criticise the government and its policies freely, without fear of arrest, as long as you're not violent. So no, I don't consider the UK a free country." — Preston Byrne
FAQ
Why is an American lawyer fighting British censorship?
Because no British lawyer would, and the targets — small American companies and websites — couldn't afford to defend themselves. Byrne is dual-qualified in both jurisdictions and treats the case as a sovereignty matter rather than a commercial one. He works pro bono and has stated publicly that the representation has likely closed off any future career at a major UK law firm.
Does the UK actually have the power to enforce these fines on American companies?
Not within the United States. Ofcom's jurisdiction ends at the UK's twelve-mile maritime boundary. To enforce a fine against an American company, the UK would have to seek recognition of the order through US federal courts under the First Amendment — a constitutional barrier the regulator has so far declined to test. Byrne's clients have refused to pay any of the fines on this basis.
What is the GRANITE Act?
The Guaranteeing Rights Against Novel International Tyranny and Extortion Act is a state-level shield law drafted by Byrne and Colin Crossman, Wyoming's Deputy Secretary of State. It blocks state courts from enforcing foreign censorship orders and creates a private right of action against foreign governments that attempt to enforce them. The Wyoming House passed the bill 46–12 in early 2026. Federal versions are under consideration in both the House and Senate.
Is Byrne saying Britain isn't a democracy?
No. He's saying Britain has lost its free speech protections and that this is now visible to a growing share of the population — but not yet to a majority. His position is that public awareness has moved from roughly 1% in 2020 to closer to 50% today, and that the next decade will determine whether reform happens through legislation or whether Britain becomes the first major Western democracy to formalise its censorship regime as permanent.
Topics
Free speech · First Amendment · Online Safety Act · Ofcom · UK politics · Internet regulation · Cross-border law · Sovereignty · GRANITE Act · Preston Byrne
