Is Ofcom picking a fight with America? FSU's Max Thompson writes in The Critic

Max Thompson, Campaigns Officer

28 September 2026

Over recent years, the relationship between the US and Canada has grown increasingly fraught, with President Trump once claiming he would like to see Canada become the fifty-first state.

The US-Canada relationship has since worsened further. Trade talks dramatically derailed last month. Within hours, a war of tariffs followed: President Trump imposed fifty per cent tariffs on $20 billion of Canadian goods, and Carney vowed to match them “dollar for dollar.” Last week, the European Union invited Canada to become an “associate” member, as Canada’s relationship with the US continues to sour.

Much of the immediate friction lies in autos, steel and aluminium, but a further grievance carries troubling implications closer to home: Canada’s Online Streaming Act, which compels platforms such as Netflix and Spotify to promote government-approved “Canadian content.” American negotiators demanded Ottawa scrap these requirements as part of any deal. Carney refused, insisting Canada was “not prepared to compromise on our sovereignty, the protection of the French language, and our culture.”

There is something rich about Carney invoking sovereignty here. The Online Streaming Act does not merely protect Canadian culture within Canada’s borders; it reaches into the boardrooms of American companies, dictating what they produce and promote as a condition of doing business there. It is legislative imperialism: Ottawa demands Washington respect its right to regulate its own cultural space, yet shows little concern for whether forcing American firms to reorder their finances might infringe America’s sovereignty.

Canada has required broadcasters to promote homegrown culture since 1991; the Online Streaming Act extended this to streaming platforms in 2023, criticised as state overreach and, the Motion Picture Association argues, a breach of Canada’s CUSMA obligations.

Britain should take note if it wants a free trade deal with the US. Its censorious tendencies and desire to over-regulate the internet have cost it dearly: last September, Britain and the US signed the £31 billion Tech Prosperity Deal, only for the US to shelve it by December, citing the Digital Services Tax, UK food safety standards, and the Online Safety Act.

Since returning to office, the Trump administration has repeatedly named the Online Safety Act as a threat to American businesses and the free speech rights of its citizens. Ofcom, the Act’s regulator, can fine platforms up to £18 million or 10 per cent of turnover. Earlier this year, the Starmer Government indicated it would back Ofcom should it move to restrict Elon Musk’s X entirely, after the row over Grok’s sexualised deepfakes.

Sarah Rogers, the US Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, has branded the Act a “censorship regime” and accused Starmer’s government of “telegraphed authoritarian intentions.”

“Just because we have a transnational internet now,” she has said, “doesn’t mean that Britain, for the first time in 250 years, gets to tell Americans what to think and say.”

One would have thought losing a £31 billion deal might teach a lesson. It has not. In June, the Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy, unveiled a Green Paper, Watch This Space, which would force platforms including Facebook, YouTube and TikTok, all American, to prioritise “trustworthy” news sources, primarily the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, while pushing others down the feed. This hands Whitehall a fresh regulatory lever over the same US firms already smarting from the Online Safety Act.

Jim Jordan, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a Trump ally, wrote to Lisa Nandy in July, warning the proposals “would hurt the free, competitive marketplace of ideas, and instead prioritize state-sanctioned media outlets,” and “would serve as a major threat to online speech and expression and infringe on the rights of American companies and their users.”

Such is the concern over Ofcom’s treatment of US businesses that American lawmakers have introduced legislation to clip its wings. Michael Rulli, a Republican congressman and Trump ally, has introduced the Granite Act (Guaranteeing Rights Against Novel International Tyranny and Extortion) to bar Ofcom from enforcing foreign speech fines through US courts. Ofcom fined 4chan £520,000 this year under the Online Safety Act; 4chan and Kiwi Farms have since sued in the US, where Ofcom has claimed sovereign immunity, a protection Rulli’s bill would remove.

“Foreign bureaucrats do not get to decide what Americans can say,” Rulli has said. “My bill makes clear that if a foreign government tries to punish an American for speech protected by the First Amendment, that judgment is dead on arrival in our courts.”

He is exactly right.

The parallel with Canada is hard to miss. Ottawa would not budge on its right to dictate what citizens see online, and is now nursing a trade war with the world’s largest economy. Britain looks set on the same course. A government expanding Ofcom’s reach with one hand cannot credibly ask Washington to look past it with the other.

Ofcom must be chastened. Its overzealous, trans-Atlantic enforcement of censorious rules online is damaging the Special Relationship. The media regulator should have no role in foreign affairs. If ministers are serious about a trade deal with America, they will have to decide whether the fight for regulatory control over the internet is worth losing it.

This article was first published in The Critic.