LONDON — Australia hopes its teenage social media ban will create a domino effect around the world. Britain isn’t so sure.  As a new law banning under-16s from signing up to platforms such as YouTube, Instagram and TikTok comes into force today, U.K. lawmakers ten thousand miles away are watching closely, but not jumping in. “There are no current plans to implement a smartphone or social media ban for children. It’s important we protect children while letting them benefit safely from the digital world, without cutting off essential services or isolating the most vulnerable,” a No.10 spokesperson said Tuesday. Regulators are tied up implementing the U.K.’s complex Online Safety Act, and there is little domestic pressure on the ruling Labour Party to act from its main political opponents.  While England’s children’s commissioner and some MPs are supportive of a ban, neither the poll-topping Reform UK or opposition Conservative Party are pushing to mirror moves down under.  “We believe that bans are ineffective,” a Reform UK spokesperson said.  Even the usually Big Tech skeptic lobby groups have their doubts about the Australian model — despite strong public support to replicate the move in the U.K. Chris Sherwood, chief executive of the NSPCC, which has led the charge in pushing for tough regulation of social media companies over the last decade, said: “We must not punish young people for the failure of tech companies to create safe experiences online.  “Services must be accountable for knowing what content is being pushed out on their platforms and ensuring that young people can enjoy social media safely.” Andy Burrows, who leads the Molly Rose Foundation campaign group, argues the Australian approach is flawed and will push children to higher-risk platforms not included in the ban.  His charity was set up in 2018 in the name of 14-year-old Molly Russell, who took her own life in 2017 while suffering from “depression and the negative effects of online content,” a coroner’s inquest concluded.  Regulators are tied up implementing the U.K.’s complex Online Safety Act, and there is little domestic pressure on the ruling Labour Party to act from its main political opponents. | Ian Forsyth/Getty Images “The quickest and most effective response to better protect children online is to strengthen regulation that directly addresses product safety and design risks rather than an overarching ban that comes with a slew of unintended consequences,” Burrows said.  “We need evidence-based approaches, not knee-jerk responses.” AUSSIE RULES Australia’s eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant, an American tasked with policing the world’s first social media account ban for teenagers, acknowledges Australia’s legislation is the “most novel, complex piece of legislation” she has ever seen. But insists: “We cannot control the ocean, but we can police the sharks.” She told a conference in Sydney this month she expects others to follow Australia’s lead. “I’ve always referred to this as the first domino,” she says.  “Parents shouldn’t have to fight billion-dollar companies to keep their kids safe online — the responsibility belongs with the platforms,” Inman Grant told Australia’s Happy Families podcast.  But the move does come with diplomatic peril. Inman Grant has not escaped the attention of the White House, which is pressuring countries to overturn tech regulations it views as unfairly targeting American companies.  U.S. congressman and Trump ally Jim Jordan has asked Inman Grant to testify before the Judiciary Committee he chairs, accusing her of being a “zealot for global [content] takedowns.” She hit back last week, describing the request as an example of territorial overreach.  The social media account ban for under-16s is the latest in a line of Australian laws that have upset U.S. tech companies. It was the first to bring in a news media bargaining code to force Google and Facebook to negotiate with publishers, and was the first major economy to rule out changing laws to let AI companies train on copyrighted material without permission. The U.K. has also upset the White House with its existing online safety measures, and the Trump administration said earlier this year it is monitoring freedom of speech concerns in the U.K. Australia is used to facing down the Big Tech lobby, explains Daniel Stone, who advised the ruling Labor Government on tech policy. “Julie has the benefit of knowing the [political] cabinet is fully supportive of her position,” he said. “It defines what’s permissible across the whole system.”  The social media account ban for under-16s is the latest in a line of Australian laws that have upset U.S. tech companies. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images “If there is a lesson for the U.K., it is that you don’t have a strong regulator unless you have a strong political leader with a clear and consistent agenda,” Stone adds.  “Australia has its anxieties, too, about pushing U.S. tech companies, but they carry themselves with confidence,” said Stone. “You have to approach Trump from a position of strength.”  Rebecca Razavi, a former Australian diplomat, regulator and visiting fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, agrees. “The thinking is, we’re a mid-sized economy and there’s this asymmetry with tech platforms dominating, and there’s actually a need to put things in place using an Australian approach to regulation,” she said.  Other countries, including Brazil, Malaysia and some European countries are moving in a similar direction. Last month the European Parliament called for a continent-wide age restriction on social media.  SLOW DOWN Others are biding their time.  The speed at which Australia’s social media ban was approved by parliament means that many of its pitfalls have not been explored, Razavi cautioned.  The legislation passed through parliament last December in 19 days with cross-party and wide public support. “It was really fast,” she said. “There was a feeling that this is something that parents care about. There’s also a deep frustration that the tech companies are just taking too long to make the reforms that are needed.”  But she added: “Some issues, such as how it works in practice, with age verification and data privacy are only being addressed now.”  Lizzie O’Shea, a human rights lawyer and founder of campaign group Digital Rights Watch, agreed. “There was very little time for consultation and engagement,” she said. “There has then subsequently been a lot of concerns about implementation. I worry about experimenting on particularly vulnerable people.”  For now, Britain and the world is watching to see if Australia’s new way to police social media delivers, or becomes an unworkable knee-jerk reaction. 

LONDON — The provider of online message board 4chan has been fined £20,000 by the U.K.’s communications regulator Ofcom for failing to respond to requests for information about its compliance with the Online Safety Act. Preston Bryne, a lawyer representing 4Chan, said in August that Ofcom had provisionally decided to fine 4Chan for £20,000. Ofcom’s statement today confirms that is the case. Ofcom will also impose a daily penalty of £100, starting from Tuesday, for either 60 days or until 4chan provides it with the relevant information, whichever is sooner. Suzanne Cater, Director of Enforcement at Ofcom, said: “Today sends a clear message that any service which flagrantly fails to engage with Ofcom and their duties under the Online Safety Act can expect to face robust enforcement action. “We’re also seeing some services take steps to introduce improved safety measures as a direct result of our enforcement action. Services who choose to restrict access rather than protect U.K. users remain on our watchlist as we continue to monitor their availability to U.K. users.” Technology Secretary Liz Kendall praised Ofcom’s decision, saying in a statement: “The Online Safety Act is not just law, it’s a lifeline. Today we’ve seen it in action, holding platforms to account so we can protect people across the U.K.” “This fine serves a clear warning to those who fail to remove illegal content or protect children from harmful material. We fully back the regulator in taking action against all platforms that do not protect users from the darkest corners of the internet,” she added.

BRUSSELS — Fresh European Union rules intended to improve transparency around online advertisements have sparked a wave of criticism, as major platforms shut down political ads instead of complying. Campaigners say the law will cause a harmful loss of information after it triggered companies including Google, Meta and Microsoft to implement a blackout on political advertising. Politicians on both sides of the aisle said it could be detrimental to democratic debate. The Commission said it is aware of the serious concerns and is continuing talks with Big Tech companies to mitigate the unintended impacts. At the heart of the EU’s attempt is a bid to curb political manipulation and foreign interference during elections. The new law on Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising, which kicked in on Friday, brings new restrictions and transparency requirements for paid political ads. Since the law was agreed, Google, Meta and Microsoft have all opted to stop showing political ads in the EU altogether. “Smaller, newer parties and independent candidates will lose an affordable channel to reach voters, while large, well-followed accounts remain largely unaffected,” said liberal Slovak EU lawmaker Veronika Cifrová Ostrihoňová. “That shift risks narrowing who can be heard and makes campaigning harder for newcomers.” She said that by axing political advertising, platforms are “taking the easier route,” which she regards as “a worrying signal” of tech firms refusing to seek compromises with rule makers. Among the requirements, the law demands that platforms provide information on what election, referendum or legislative process the ad is linked to, how much it cost and details on any targeting techniques used.  In announcing their decisions, Google said the definition of political advertising is too broad, while Meta criticized targeted ad restrictions that ignore the “benefits [of personalized ads] to advertisers and the people they want to reach.” Polish hard-right member of the European Parliament Piotr Müller said the rules are an example of over-regulation gone wild. “The political market will be consolidated, with large, well-known parties having the resources to meet the new requirements. This undermines pluralism and freedom of public debate,” he said. Others think the blackout will benefit fringe politicians with more extreme views, to the detriment of those with moderate messaging.  “You cannot get 50 million views for boring policy videos. If your politicians do not have social media rizz, I think it disadvantages them now,” said Sam Jeffers, executive director and co-founder of WhoTargetsMe, a non-profit that tracks online campaigning. Jeffers added that researchers risk losing access to political history as they lose visibility over data on the ads. “Seven years of historical data is gone” from Google’s political advertising library, he said, as it no longer includes the EU as a supported region. In announcing their decisions, Google said the definition of political advertising is too broad. | Wallace Woon/EPA “That for me was quite a chilling interpretation of this law,” he said, expressing concern that the same might happen to Meta’s database. Google said in response that ads that would previously have been shown on its dedicated EU political ads transparency database will remain publicly available in its main advertising pages, subject to retention policies. Google’s Ads library still contains information on at least some political ads, POLITICO found, but it seems to be mostly restricted to the previous year — which would be in line with the EU’s Digital Services Act requirements. The available information is also not as extensive as for other jurisdictions, and excludes for example the amount of money spent on ads.  BEYOND POLITICS Companies have criticized a lack of guidance and clarity from the EU executive. The Commission published guidelines on the law this week, just two days before it took effect.   Based on the definition of political advertising, Meta also blocked “social issue” ads, while Microsoft won’t run “issue-based advertising.” That could include ads about climate change, migration, social justice and human rights initiatives or any “politically sensitive or socially divisive issue,” Microsoft said. The law’s definition covers anything meant to influence the outcome of an election, referendum, vote or legislative process — which could include campaigns by charities and civil society. Small organizations that are “essential” to EU democracy will see their campaign and fundraising options limited, said Eoin Dubsky, senior campaign manager for advocacy group Eko.   The Commission only clarified this week that awareness or fundraising campaigns by NGOs shouldn’t always be considered political ads. Commission spokesperson Markus Lammert defended the law, underlining in a comment for this article that it “does not ban political advertising.” Lammert said Google and Meta are “private companies and their commercial decisions on the services and products they choose to offer are theirs to make,” but that the Commission is also aware of serious concerns from civil society about the impact. A group of civil society organizations have written open letters to Meta and Google, calling for the companies to reconsider their decisions to block political ads in the EU. Based on the definition of political advertising, Meta also blocked “social issue” ads, while Microsoft won’t run “issue-based advertising.” | Olivier Hoslet/EPA The Commission’s Lammert said it is in contact with stakeholders and national governments to “assess the possible impact of Meta’s commercial decision,” and will continue discussions with both companies on the topic. It will also hold talks in 2026 to “learn from the experiences at that point and draw insights as necessary.” For some, the furore is an unwelcome distraction as the EU grapples with enforcing other regulations — most notably its Digital Services Act to regulate content on social media platforms, which already includes requirements on advertising transparency. The Commission should focus on tackling “toxic algorithms that push propaganda ahead of facts” and bombard users with “outrageous content” rather than “information they actually want,” said German Greens lawmaker Alexandra Geese.

BRUSSELS — Ursula von der Leyen is so set on getting her grandkids off social media she forgot to do her homework. The European Commission chief made waves in recent weeks when she came out in favor of a European Union minimum age for using social media — twice. Citing strong pressure from EU capitals for a “digital majority” age, von der Leyen said at an event in New York that “as a mother of seven children, and grandmother of five, I share their view.” “We all agree that young people should reach a certain age before they smoke, drink or access adult content. The same can be said for social media,” she said. But von der Leyen has so far overlooked a simple fact: It’s up to national governments, not the EU, to set age restrictions for alcohol and tobacco. The Commission can coordinate rules about health but cannot harmonize them, according to the legal treaties of the bloc. “There is a significant question of whether [banning social media] is even something that the European Union has the power to do,” said Peter Craddock, partner at Keller & Heckman law firm in Brussels. Craddock currently offers legal services to social media companies. Von der Leyen said in her annual State of the Union speech that she will task a panel of experts to study whether to implement a social media ban and how to do it.   There’s a lot to figure out, such as how much “autonomy” to give EU countries and whether they should be allowed to set their own age, whether “it’s a full ban or a partial ban for certain functionalities or certain types of interactions,” Craddock said. Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier in June said that an EU-wide ban “is not what the European Commission is doing. It’s not where we are heading to. Why? Because this is the prerogative of our member states.” For many, that hasn’t changed. “Currently, we don’t see any legal basis for a harmonized social media ban for children at EU level,” said Fabiola Bas Palomares, lead policy and advocacy officer at Eurochild, a children’s rights group. MANY LAWS, NO SOLUTIONS The EU’s flagship privacy regulation, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), was one legal route the Commission previously suggested as a possible avenue. The GDPR sets the age of 13 as the lowest possible age when minors can consent to their personal data being processed — something that happens on all social media platforms. But the law allows for different countries to raise the bar. But experts have pointed out this doesn’t really work as an instrument to impose a digital majority age.   The GDPR sets the age of 13 as the lowest possible age when minors can consent to their personal data being processed — something that happens on all social media platforms. | Nicolas Guyonnet/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images Craddock pointed out that a country can end up in a situation where laws on processing personal data are “less permissive” than access to social media, or vice versa. “Then you have to be able to justify that,” he said. The GDPR still shows that EU legislators “were able to at least have a range” of ages for restrictions, said Urs Buscke, senior legal policy officer at umbrella consumer organization BEUC. She said this is where things could go for social media restrictions too. Another legal avenue is a revision of the EU’s Audiovisual Media Services Directive, a law that applies to video-sharing platforms — which effectively covers most social media. The law will be reviewed next year and stronger protections for minors are on the table.  But, in EU speak, that law is a directive and not a regulation, meaning countries have a lot of leeway in how to apply it. It is also focused on keeping kids away from adult content, not off social media altogether, said Bas Palomares. There are guidelines under the Digital Services Act, but those guidelines are non-binding and help platforms comply with the EU’s landmark online safety law. Released this summer, the latest version still leaves age restrictions up to EU countries. The guidelines are reviewed annually, so the Commission could look to tighten the screws on platforms next year. But Regnier stressed last week that the Digital Services Act “is not the legal basis that will allow us to set the minimum age” for social media. There’s also the Digital Fairness Act, an upcoming revamp of consumer law, which will include provisions on protecting vulnerable consumers, including minors. Buscke, who specializes in consumer law, said this is unlikely to include a social media ban. Craddock said it’s too late to tack a social media ban onto that revamp as consultations are already ongoing and such a measure would require large-scale studies. CAN THEY, SHOULD THEY? Warnings about the health dangers of kids’ addictions to social media have piled up — from the EU’s top leadership and governments all the way to health authorities and tech regulators. But despite the momentum, some experts doubt an outright ban is the right way to go. Bas Palomares said a ban is incongruous with children’s rights to “protection, information, education, freedom of expression, play” which are “substantially enabled” by social media. “A social media ban would mean a disproportionate restriction of children’s rights and perhaps push them toward situations of greater risk and lower supervision,” she said. “Before resorting to arbitrary age restrictions, the EU should focus on leveraging and complementing the tools we already have.”

BRUSSELS — The European Commission is asking Big Tech platforms how much it costs to comply with the Digital Services Act in a questionnaire seen by POLITICO. The six-page questionnaire sent to Very Large Online Platforms and Search Engines on Sept. 19 includes detailed questions about how much companies are spending to come up with transparency reports and implement compliance measures. The Commission, in charge of supervising how these big platforms are complying with the EU’s landmark online safety regulation, is preparing a review of the regulation for Nov. 17. The questionnaire asks companies to estimate how much they spend on IT — for example to set up monitoring tools to measure active users — as well as service providers and staff. The request covers both one-off costs when the DSA came into place, and ongoing requirements such as regular transparency reports. An optional part of the questionnaire asks platforms to qualitatively assess what are the main drivers of the various costs, such as the existence of many formats and portals or the complexity of the underlying legal concepts. The study is conducted by Visionary Analytics, a Lithuanian research firm. On top of compliance costs, platforms with over 45 million users in the EU have to pay a supervisory fee to the Commission to fund their own oversight. TikTok and Meta have partly won a court challenge on the Commission’s process for calculating these fees.

LONDON — Meta will let users in the United Kingdom choose whether to pay for a monthly fee instead of seeing personalized ads on its platforms in an overhaul to its advertising model. Over the coming weeks, Facebook and Instagram users in the U.K. will receive a notification giving them the option to pay £2.99 a month (or £3.99 if done though Apple or Google’s operating systems) for “no ads,” Meta said. Users who don’t pay will continue to see ads, but will “still be able to control their ads experience” using existing settings, Meta said, adding that while it continues to “believe in an ad-supported internet,” the new offer gives U.K. users more control over their data. The move follows a legal challenge settled with the tech giant by campaigner Tanya O’Carroll, who argued that Meta’s targeted advertising constitutes “direct marketing” and it must therefore give users the right to object under U.K. law. The U.K.’s data protection watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office, backed O’Carroll in the case. Following the ruling, Meta said it would consider extending a subscription model, which it already offers in the European Union, to the U.K. Dubbed ‘pay or consent,’ the model has proven controversial among privacy advocates. But the ICO concluded this year that it does not contravene U.K. data protection laws if consent is “freely given,” such as by setting an “appropriate fee.” An ICO spokesperson said it welcomed Meta’s announcement but would continue to monitor its roll out and the broader impact of ‘pay or consent’ models. “This moves Meta away from targeting users with ads as part of the standard terms and conditions for using its Facebook and Instagram services, which we’ve been clear is not in line with U.K. law,” they said. Meta said the decision followed “extensive engagement” with the ICO, including over the cost of U.K. subscriptions, which will be a little over half what the company currently charges in Europe (EU users can pay €5.99 a month for ad-free services). The ICO’s “constructive approach” differed from the approach of EU regulators, Meta said, adding that they “continue to overreach by requiring us to provide a less personalized ads experience that goes beyond what the law requires, creating a worse experience for users and businesses.” “In contrast, the U.K.’s more pro-growth and pro-innovation regulatory environment allows for a clearer choice for users, while ensuring our personalized advertising tools can continue to be engines of growth and productivity for companies up and down the country.”

When Austrian-born porn star Marcello Bravo got on stage to host Europe’s premier adult industry awards in Amsterdam earlier in September, few in the crowd expected him to talk politics.   Addressing “Europe’s finest fornicators,” as he called the audience at XBIZ Amsterdam, Bravo delivered an opening monologue peppered with sex jokes. He then turned to a more serious matter: the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act.  Brits “have to hand over their entire personal lives just to enjoy a bit of online pornography these days!” Bravo (real name Markus Schlögl) joked. “It’s fucked up,” yelled an audience member. The crowd tittered. The global adult industry has evolved alongside the internet, growing to hundreds of millions of users and even outflanking household names like TikTok and Amazon, at least according to some studies. Regulators, initially slow to address the industry’s unique challenges, have recently come of age. In the past year, porn sites have come under scrutiny in the U.K., France, Italy and the European Union, fueled by a spiraling fear that minors are being exposed to harmful online content. Leaders from France’s Emmanuel Macron to the European Union’s Ursula von der Leyen have called for restrictions on children accessing certain parts of the internet, facilitated through age checks and bans.   The porn industry is pushing back. POLITICO spoke to a dozen performers and platform employees at the Amsterdam conference. While all agreed that children should not have access to adult content, most expressed significant concerns about how this principle is being implemented.   KEEPING PORN PLATFORMS IN CHECK Over the summer, France and the U.K. put in place requirements for age checks on porn platforms, but gave leeway to use different techniques, ranging from checking IDs to facial estimation. The European Commission said in non-binding guidelines over the summer that porn platforms should implement strict age checks and is investigating several of them for failing to do so.   The measures are “really just about control. It’s not actually about porn, but porn is a very good scapegoat,” said Christina Kastalia, a digital showgirl with a bachelor’s degree in law. “I see it [age verification regulations] more so as an attack to, literally, the entire society.” It’s not “just about porn. It’s about mass surveillance and it’s about control,” she said.  Kastalia echoed arguments made by numerous privacy-minded stakeholders and big porn platforms, who say that keeping minors away from adult content is a Trojan horse for heightened online surveillance.  Leaders from France’s Emmanuel Macron to the European Union’s Ursula von der Leyen have called for restrictions on children accessing certain parts of the internet. | Pool Photo by Eliot Blondet via Getty Images Aylo Freesites, the parent company of Pornhub, RedTube and YouPorn, pulled its services in France in protest of the new age verification requirements. A French court rejected their challenge of the measures in an emergency opinion, prompting the company to resume operations pending a final ruling.   Requiring identification to watch naughty videos may result in significant drops in traffic — and therefore in their incomes — industry giant Pornhub has argued in the past.   But Madelaine Thomas, senior policy advisor at the Digital Intimacy Coalition, said there’s only been “a marginal blip in income” and traffic. Thomas was speaking for the many performers who don’t rely on free sites for their work.   GOING UNDERGROUND  The porn industry is a giant in its own right, in Europe counting tens of millions of users, with some declaring over 100 million in transparency reports. Estimates place the sector’s global value at nearly $73 billion in 2023, and it shows no signs of slowing down. Pornhub, which releases annual statistics, says roughly half of its visitors are below the age of 34. France, meanwhile, is its second-largest market after the U.S. But as porn has become an online ubiquity, it has also become more accessible to minors, raising concerns about addiction and distorted perceptions of gender relations, potentially leading to violence. TV shows like Adolescence have brought these worries to the forefront of the EU policy debate.   There are several methods for verifying users’ ages, including checking government identity documents or credit cards, as well as using photos of users.   Frequenters of porn sites are daunted by the prospect of uploading their ID or having their credit cards checked on the platforms, as opposed to having an app on their device that sends a signal to the platform, a technical solution championed by porn and social media companies.  When porn platforms enforce age verification, “what you’re really doing is driving the traffic to places that are further underground,” said Jupiter Jetson, an adult content creator.  Downloads for virtual private networks, which allow users to bypass age verification requirements, skyrocketed in the U.K. and France. | SOPA Images/Getty Images While big platforms like Pornhub, XNXX, XVideos and Stripchat are in regulators’ crosshairs, smaller porn platforms have their own set of problems. Jetson stated that they don’t verify the age of performers or ensure that individuals in the videos consent to being filmed and having their content posted online. On the user side, minors will always find a way around restrictions, Kastalia said.   Case in point: Downloads for virtual private networks, which allow users to bypass age verification requirements, skyrocketed in the U.K. and France before these countries put in verification requirements.  For porn stars and sex workers, the crusade to put age restrictions on accessing porn is a moralistic one — the latest attempt to shut the industry down on puritanical grounds.    At the end of the day, Jetson said, the age verification measures are not about protecting children but simply wanting to see sex workers and adult content performers “suffer.”

LONDON — At a couple of pages long, the technology pact the U.S. and the U.K. will sign this week when President Donald Trump lands in London will be easy to miss amid the circus of a state visit. But what will be impossible to ignore is the group of technology heavyweights joining Trump’s entourage. Nvidia boss Jensen Huang, who is hosting a party in London’s King’s Cross on Thursday night, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Blackstone chief executive Stephen Schwarzman are among those accompanying the U.S. president. Nvidia is due to announce an investment in Britain’s biggest data center, planned for Blyth in northeast England, according to three people familiar with the plans. A subsidiary of Blackstone is leading the project and OpenAI is also involved. It is expected to be billed as a British “Stargate,” similar to a Norwegian version the companies announced in July. The tech pact Trump will agree with Prime Minister Keir Starmer has paved the way for some of that investment, the U.K. embassy in Washington believes. The document focuses on building partnerships — through R&D, procurement and skills — in AI, quantum and space, according to two people briefed on it. A U.K. government spokesperson claimed the pact would “change the lives” of Brits and Americans, while U.K. Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said: “Boosting our tech ties with the U.S. will help us deliver the change people here at home expect and deserve.” A separate agreement on nuclear energy will also come during the state visit, fast-tracking reactor design checks between the two countries. It includes plans to build data centers powered by small modular reactors at the former coal power station in Cottam, Nottinghamshire. MADE IN THE USA  Britain pitched the pact to Washington as a way for Western democracies to beat China in the technology race and set a “gold standard” in digital rulemaking. Yet while the country’s AI strategy talks about sovereignty, with only £2 billion of public money set aside to deliver it, Britain is heavily reliant on U.S. investments and technology to make it happen. Gaia Marcus, director of the Ada Lovelace Institute think tank, warned of increased U.K. reliance on America. “The public deserves to understand who really benefits from these partnerships and what the return will be for taxpayers in years to come,” she said. “We mustn’t just focus on what the figures look like today, if the cost is technological lock-in tomorrow, limiting our ability to seek alternatives in the future.”  Nvidia is due to announce an investment in Britain’s biggest data center, planned for Blyth in northeast England, according to three people familiar with the plans. | Ina Fassbender/Getty Images Chi Onwurah, chair of the House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, said: “Whilst I’m pleased that the U.K. is an attractive place for U.S. investment, the U.K. needs to take decisions that are in its long-term strategic interest; true technology sovereignty cannot mean being dependent on one investor or country.” But Keegan McBride, senior policy advisor in emerging technology and geopolitics at the Tony Blair Institute, said the U.K. has little choice as only the U.S. or China were able to provide it with the AI infrastructure it needed to compete. “For the U.K. and for many other countries that want to access frontier AI capabilities, the United States represents the best option,” he said.  The Trump administration, meanwhile, wants to sell American AI “packages” to its allies, pitching them as a form of AI sovereignity. “We are committed to finding a way to enable America’s private companies to meet your national technological needs,” White House tech policy chief Michael Kratsios told APEC members at a conference in South Korea this August.  Another prize for U.S. tech companies is large government contracts. Britain’s defense department announced a £400 million deal with Google Cloud last week, while Nvidia, OpenAI, Anthropic and Google Cloud signed separate partnership agreements with the U.K. government earlier this year.   JUST DON’T MENTION RULES  The U.S.-U.K. tech pact is expected to avoid the thornier issue of online regulation, but it is something the White House has pressured the U.K. government on throughout trade negotiations. Starmer also faces domestic pressure from Nigel Farage, leader of the populist and poll-topping Reform UK party, who compared Britain’s free speech laws to North Korea in the U.S. Congress this month.  Starmer has repeatedly defended Britain’s Online Safety Act, including in front of Trump at his Scottish Turnberry resort in August, while Trump has also attacked the Digital Services Tax and competition regulations.  McBride said: “There is a growing number of regulatory concerns on the side of the United States, particularly regarding censorship and free speech, that could disrupt tech relations between the two countries.”    One person briefed on the agenda for Trump’s visit said: “There are three regulatory pieces that the U.S. is really concerned about in Europe right now. They’re going to be looking … to see some sort of support from the U.K.”  They listed the Digital Services Tax, which the government has repeatedly ruled out ditching, the EU’s Digital Markets Act, and the CSDD (an EU supply chain disclosure reporting standard). “There are people inside the White House that are very set on expanding the U.S.-U.K. relationship as a means to counterbalance the EU, and I think that’s a big part of this trip.” 

Elon Musk called for the “dissolution of parliament” and change of government in the U.K. during a far-right rally in London on Saturday. The Tesla and X owner issued the rallying cry to an audience of thousands via a video link as part of a “unite the kingdom” demonstration that was organized by far-right activist Tommy Robinson — real name, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. “Violence is coming,” Musk said, railing against what he called the woke mindset. “You either fight back or you die,” he told the crowd. Musk’s comments are the latest in a war of words with the British government. He has been a vocal critic of the U.K.’s Online Safety Act, which he says threatens free speech, and has attacked Downing Street’s handling of grooming gangs. “I really think that there’s got to be a change of government in Britain,” Musk said Saturday. “We don’t have another four years, or whenever the next election is — it’s too long. There’s got to be a dissolution of parliament and a new vote held.” This isn’t the first time Musk has talked about violence in Britain. Last year, he said “civil war is inevitable” after riots broke out over claims from far-right groups that a Muslim asylum seeker was responsible for the stabbing of three children. The disinformation campaign fueled anger against immigrants living in Britain. Musk has also turned on U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, accusing him of “two-tier policing” that punished right-wing protesters more than those from the left. The claim has been debunked but is still used by conspiracy theorists and populist politicians, such as Reform UK leader Nigel Farage. The attacks against Starmer’s government continued during Saturday’s appearance at “unite the kingdom” rally, which drew more than 110,000 people onto London’s streets. The Guardian described the rally as the largest nationalist event in decades.  “Something’s got to be done,” Musk said.

Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor and a foreign affairs columnist at POLITICO Europe. The five stone-faced police officers that detained Irish comedy writer Graham Linehan at Heathrow airport for three trans critical posts this week didn’t unholster their sidearms, but they nevertheless managed to shoot themselves in the foot. Or, to be more accurate, they shot British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in the foot, with a rankling arrest that unsurprisingly sparked a political firestorm — and the free speech debacle couldn’t have come at a better time for far-right ReformUK party leader Nigel Farage. “Politics is downstream from culture,” the late American conservative publisher Andrew Breitbart once famously argued. This is the maxim now guiding MAGA ideologues as well as the likes of Farage, who is now posing as a free-speech defender and stirring the pot for the benefit of populists. Never one to mute his hyperbole, Farage was touring Washington this week, stirring up trouble as only he knows how. Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee — a panel chaired by Republican Representative Jim Jordan, who’s been examining the impact British and European online safety rules are having on U.S. tech giants — the U.K.’s roister-in-chief was in his provocative element, reveling in clashes with irate Democratic lawmakers. Gleefully raising Linehan’s arrest as another example of the “war on freedom” being waged in Britain — and even Europe for that matter — he compared the U.K. to the likes of North Korea, calling it an “illiberal and authoritarian censorship regime.” He also highlighted the case of Lucy Connolly, a local politician’s wife who was jailed for 31 months for inciting violence, after calling for asylum seekers’ hotels to be set alight. Her goading posts came at the height of the Islamophobic anti-migrant riots that broke out in Britain in 2024. Now released, Connolly has grandiosely dubbed herself Starmer’s “political prisoner,” and her case has became a cause célèbre in MAGA world — despite the fact that in a more orderly era in the U.S., her incendiary remarks may well have been construed as posing a direct threat to public safety and, therefore, not protected under the First Amendment. But for Farage and his MAGA friends, Connolly is a political martyr, and His Majesty’s Prison at Peterborough, where she served her sentence, is no different than a Stalin-era Siberian Gulag. During a visit to the White House this winter, Starmer had rebutted rising MAGA criticism over the Labour government’s handling of freedom of expression and online rules, as U.S. Vice President JD Vance told him that Britain’s “infringements on free speech” also “affect American technology companies and by extension American citizens.”  “We’ve had free speech for a very, very long time in the United Kingdom – and it will last for a very, very long time,” Starmer chided gently in response. But according to Farage this week, Starmer had “talked about our proud history of free speech but what people say, what they do, are two very different things.” And isn’t that the truth. Of course, increasingly open-ended and vaguely drafted online safety regulations, as well as some undeniably heavy-handed policing of speech in Britain and elsewhere should be cause for some alarm. And it has prompted many across the political spectrum — not just populists — to rightly to question whether there’s a drift toward “unfreedom” in Western democracies. In Britain, police are now making around 12,000 arrests a year for offensive speech and social media posts that cause anxiety. For Nigel Farage and his MAGA friends, Lucy Connolly is a political martyr. | Neil Hall/EPA For many, the balance between freedom of expression and protection has gone askew and cancel culture has run amok — Linehan’s arrest certainly highlights that something’s amiss. And this has given Farage an opening. But what is it that really troubles the ReformUK leader and MAGA-style populists in the U.S. and Europe? Are they genuine advocates of the classic liberal virtue of free speech, or are they provocateurs using it to foment resentment in a culture war they hope to win? “You can say what you like, I don’t care because that is what free speech is,” Farage told a Democratic lawmaker during the midweek hearing. But despite his righteous rhetoric, much like his MAGA allies, Farage seems more intent on simply replacing the “woke language” of liberals with the anti-woke language of the populist right, on silencing and brow-beating opponents, and on intimidating media outlets  as best he can on the way to establish public cultural dominance. For example, just days before he set off for Washington, a county council led by Farage’s ReformUK party banned the main local newspaper and its website from attending events, and told the outlet’s reporters that elected officials wouldn’t respond to their queries. The ban imposed by Nottinghamshire County Council came after the newspaper had published a series of stories the municipal authority leader claimed “consistently misrepresented” the party. So much for free speech. Now lifted after Farage had a “little chat” with the council amid mounting public criticism, this ban is part and parcel of how Reform often tries to intimidate reporters — or “thuggish bullying” as it’s been described by the Independent’s David Maddox. But bans and bullying are part of the tactics used by every far-right populist. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was the sherpa on this, shaping what he likes to call an “illiberal democracy.” U.S.-based think tank Freedom House labels Hungary as only partly free as its government “moved to institute policies that hamper the operations of opposition groups, journalists, universities, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) whose perspectives it finds unfavorable.” MAGA ideologues in the U.S. have now enlarged the Orbán playbook, targeting NGOs and universities and so-called mainstream media with gusto. They see themselves not just as warriors fighting a national battle but as combatants in a civilizational, politico-cultural crusade that’s to be carried out well beyond America’s shores. As far as they see it, they need save Western civilization — from itself, if necessary. Which means that for them, domestic and foreign policy are one and the same, and that liberal Europe also has to be remade in the MAGA image. “Trump and his MAGA camp believe a dominant liberal establishment has skewed U.S. culture towards a weak progressive ideology that does a disservice to America. This ideology is being fed by a ‘globalist elite,’ chief among them Europeans. The new administration is therefore going after all the liberal holdouts, at home and abroad,” argued Célia Belin of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “MAGA’s solidarity with conservative, nationalist and populist movements in Europe has an objective: finding partners for Trump’s effort to transform global culture.”