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WATCH: Keir Starmer's free speech crackdown has 'consequences' with the US, Jennifer Ewing warns
Dec 22, 2025
Sir Keir Starmer "continues to be proved wrong" and JD Vance "continues to be proved right" on Britain's free speech crackdown, Connie Shaw has told GB News.Speaking to Late Show Live host Ben Leo, the Free Speech Union's External Affairs Officer declared an attack by Google on Labour's Online Safety Act "another blow" to Government.FULL STORY HERE.
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0:00
Of all companies, my memory of Google, especially after the past couple of years during COVID, the pandemic, YouTube particularly, who they own, was that they are very left of centre
0:09
They're liberals based in San Francisco. They were censoring all sorts of people. But now even they're coming out and slamming the government for the Online Safety Act
0:16
Yes. So no one can claim that there is sort of a political ideological motive behind this recent attack on the government for cracking down on free speech
0:25
and no one can be surprised because long before the Free Speech... Sorry, long before the Online Safety Act came into power
0:31
the Free Speech Union and other free speech campaigners were warning for a very long time about the effects that it would have
0:38
And obviously lots of people will say, well, what, you don't want to protect children from graphic online content
0:43
Yeah. But as soon as it came into power, we saw legal content being censored
0:48
Katie Lamb's speech about grooming gangs in Parliament censored. A story about Richard and the Lionheart censored
0:54
an arrest in Leeds, the video of it censored. And ironically, one of the most recent ones
0:59
Spiked Online's documentary called Think Before You Post, about free speech, was censored by the Online Safety Act
1:06
So it's another awful blow for the government. Of course, you know, the bill was drafted under the previous government
1:11
There were issues with it then. But the continuous sort of, as Keir Starmer says
1:15
we've always had free speech in this country. We'll protect it for as long as we can. Keir Starmer continues to be proved wrong
1:21
and J.D. Vance continues to be proved right. The free speech is obviously under threat
1:25
And like you said, it's Google this time. It's not Elon Musk. It's not right-wingers who want to spread hate speech, as they say
1:32
It's Google. It's the search engine giant who is saying that the Ofcom
1:37
the way that they are enforcing the Online Safety Act, is going to have a detrimental effect on what people can and can see online Jennifer Ewing the Telegraph reported this week that US officials were left stunned that apparently Liz Kendall the technology secretary I think you just mentioned it there was potentially
1:52
mooting bringing the likes of ChatGTP under the Online Safety Act. I mean
1:57
these people aren't serious, are they? No, they're not, but there's going to be very serious
2:02
repercussions. We've already seen them. The $30 billion tech deal that the UK and the United States had
2:08
signed a few months ago, like, the US is putting a line through that. Gone, scrounged. It's gone
2:12
Because of the online safety act? Because of the online safety act, because they want to say, what are you doing
2:16
Because there's real world consequences for I mean, look at the the shifty language, flimsy language in this
2:23
I think you just said potentially illegal, possibly illegal. So it's all this very loose language that will have real world repercussions
2:32
And no, I mean, J.D. Vance has been talking about this. The president's been talking about this. Your group does such good work around this
2:38
And it is a very big deal. And we don't want the United States and the United Kingdom diverging any further over this
2:45
We should we should just say, Ben, that the big part of this story is that Ofcom is now speaking about potentially illegal things that you just said, which wasn't something that was that phrase was not used in the act
2:58
And so Google saying this doesn't seem like something that was intended by Parliament
3:02
So what does potentially illegal mean? The social media sites are already being urged to act with extreme caution, because if they allow illegal content to be on their platforms, they can be fined up to 18 million pounds or 10 percent of their annual revenue, whichever is larger
3:18
So they have a great incentive to make sure they are cracking down. So they're acting overzealously. And now this potentially illegal, what does that even mean
3:26
It's like a non-crime hate incident, right? Yes, exactly. So it's just slippery slope, you know, whoever decides, you know, to suit their narrative
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