Ezra Levant and Alam Bokhari examine the UK’s Online Safety Act (August 25, 2023), forcing age verification via government IDs to silence dissent on topics like migrant crime or UK criticism. Labour’s private admissions reveal its true aim: suppressing political speech, protests, and "misinformation," with Ofcom’s power to deplatform platforms like GAB. The US State Department under Trump now opposes global censorship—unlike Biden’s alleged collaboration—while SPLC and NewsGuard push "media literacy" in schools to target American political speech. These laws risk backfiring by destabilizing censorship regimes, but activists must pressure the White House to block similar measures abroad before they threaten US free speech. [Automatically generated summary]
One of my favorite guys, one of my smartest friends is Alan Bokari, and he knows everything about internet censorship and now incredibly internet freedom with the U.S. State Department fighting for freedom around the world.
It's pretty exciting.
And we've got a feature interview with him, one of the smartest guys I know.
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Tonight, will America save free speech around the world through big tech?
It's opposite time, isn't it?
It was quite different under Joe Biden.
We'll have a feature interview with Alan Bokari.
It's August 4th, and this is the Ezra Levant show.
Shame on you, you censorious boobug.
Justin Trudeau called it the Online Harms Act Bill C-63.
It would have become law had he not dissolved Parliament.
It was the Censorship Act that created three new censorship bureaucracies and allowed massive fines.
Well, the UK has that law.
They call it the Online Safety Act, but it's very similar.
They're using it with great and brutal force, and obviously they're using it for political purposes.
What's interesting is that this time around, the United States has a Department of State that really cares about freedom of speech.
Under Joe Biden, the State Department worked with foreign allies to limit internet freedom around the world.
The State Department was actually with the bad guys, funding them.
It's the opposite now.
Now, Secretary Rubio points out people around the world who were censoring Americans or American tech platforms and bans them.
Just today, Alexandra DeMorais, the out-of-control crusading judge in Brazil that put censorship orders on social media, he was hit with a Magnitsky Act sanctions, basically freezing him in any dealings with the U.S. imagine that.
The U.S. State Department putting sanctions on censors.
Well, what are they going to do in the UK?
Because that Online Safety Act is doing the same thing.
Joining me now to talk about this is a man better positioned to talk about this than just about anyone in the world.
He was a senior tech editor at Breitbart.com.
He's from the UK originally, and now he works full-time for freedom.
In fact, that's the name of his organization, Foundation for Freedom Online.
You know who I'm talking about.
He's the managing director there, our good friend Alam Bokhari.
Alam, there's a lot going on, and Trump's freedom agenda is spreading around the world.
Tell me the latest.
So the Online Safety Act in the UK just went into force.
It went into force on the 25th a few days ago.
And if you look at my Twitter feed, you'll see already examples of dissident political speech being placed behind age filters.
So you're asked on X to give up your driver's license to prove how old you are, to prove you're over 18 before you can access political content, which is very interesting because the Labour government of the UK, their ministers who fully back this law introduced by the previous Conservative government, they're doing a media tour right now saying.
The online safety bill is only about protecting children from harmful content like pornography.
Well, it turns out some of that harmful content that they're protecting people from is in fact political content.
We've already seen an opposition MP, Katie Lamb, get put behind an age filter because she was talking about migrant crime.
On my feed, you'll see an account, a very funny account that simply makes fun of the UK for occasionally looking like a third world country.
People are being asked to prove their age, to give up their driver's license just to view that account.
So this is how the Online Safety Act is being used already.
And as you said, Ezra, at the start, there was a similar law in Canada.
There's going to be a similar law in Australia.
There's a vast censorship regime with similar measures in the European Union called the Digital Services Act.
This is an international assault, a convergence against free speech that we're seeing in every single Western country around the world, except the United States now.
But as you said, the United States helped create this under Joe Biden.
This is in part, we're dealing with the knock-on effects of what the US government was doing under the previous administration when they backed censorship all around the world.
I'll add to that.
Just today, an Irish court ruled against X or Twitter in favor of the government bringing in more censorship laws.
It looks like a big showdown.
And normally, America versus the world, where there's a lot more of the world than there are Americans, but all the tech companies and all the economic power and the moral authority of that bully pulpit.
I'd bet on Trump and Secretary Rubio, who's sort of in charge of this, he has not been shy.
I'm rooting for the good guys.
I want to come back to something you said a minute ago, which is in the UK, people now have to enter a government piece of ID to see something.
The government says that's just for things like child abuse or pornography.
They're doing that because who would be against that?
Well, as you point out, it's touching on regular politics stuff too.
You said you have to prove you're 18, but it's more than that, isn't it?
If you're uploading a driver's license, you're saying your name.
So you're showing the government or whoever's collecting that info who you are.
You can't read anything privately now.
And who knows if that data will be hacked?
I mean, I don't want to be paranoid, but I don't trust the government with my data.
Do you?
That's right.
And you should see it as a stepping stone to ending internet anonymity, which is a lot of the same supporters of these type of measures, they hate online anonymity because that's the ultimate form of free speech.
You're expressing your opinions without putting your name out there without risking your reputation.
That's a form of free speech that's even more powerful than regular social media.
And by making people give up their personal identifying information just to access political speech online, you're creating a stepping stone to end anonymity.
In addition, you're putting that information on an online database.
You're entrusting some third party with it, which may not be entirely secure.
We just saw in the United States, there was an app, it was called T.
They asked every user to upload their driver's license.
And it turns out their security was really shorty.
The entire database leaked.
So there was an ironic element of karma to it since the whole app was sort of a doxing platform, a Me Too platform, and then everything leaked.
But you're uploading these documents.
How can you be sure that the place you're uploading it to is secure, even if they're trying to be secure, even if they're not sharing it with the government or with journalists, it could leak at a future date.
You don't know how secure that's going to be.
Yeah, it really is Orwellian.
Hey, there's one more thing I want to point out.
And can you corroborate this?
I've seen this by a few people on Twitter, and it looks authoritative, that this online safety act expressly says, and I mentioned some of the things, it's designed to protect young viewers against violence and pornography and fraud and suicide.
And again, that's designed to get people to say, of course, I support that.
But then they sneak the politics into that.
They did that in Canada's Bill C632.
So you have all these well-meaning things.
Who could possibly disagree with them?
But stuck in there.
And you correct me if I'm reading this wrong.
Subject matter, including, quote, illegal immigration and people smuggling.
So you can't talk about suicide.
And I can understand.
Go ahead.
Yeah, we cannot let them have this narrative.
This is the narrative they're running with.
They're even accusing Nigel Farage and the Reform Party, which opposes this bill and has promised to repeal it, of being on the side of child predators.
They're completely running with this narrative.
But if you go to the UK government's official guidelines on the online safety bill, so the official government website, you'll see it's right there in bold text.
I put this on my Twitter feed as well, that the Act covers myths and disinformation, that it covers hate speech, that it covers all of these pretexts that are used for censoring political speech.
And, you know, government ministers in the UK, when they're out doing TV interviews, they'll only talk about the child protection measures.
They won't talk about what they're talking about in Parliament, where government ministers are saying, yes, this act does cover misinformation.
And in fact, government ministers have even said that a key purpose of the bill is to prevent the kind of riots that were seen, the kind of public disturbances that were seen in the UK last year, because people were organizing organically to protest immigration and migrant crime and illegal immigration.
That's not about protecting kids.
That's about shutting down political activity.
That's what they really care about.
And the protecting kids stuff is really just a Trojan horse.
And I'll say one more thing on this.
It's not just a Trojan horse in the UK.
It's also a Trojan horse in America because what you're seeing in America at the state level now is a big push for what's being called media literacy and digital literacy lessons in schools.
And again, there, the pretext is exactly the same.
People say we need to teach kids safe online browsing habits.
But when you dig a little deeper, the organizations that are providing the teaching curricula for digital literacy, for media literacy, they're organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center.
They're organizations like NewsGuard.
They're organizations whose entire purpose is to tell people don't go to websites that carry political viewpoints we disagree with.
That is what organizations like that do.
And again, they're using protecting kids as the Trojan horse to achieve that.
Right.
You know, when I saw that they wanted to ban discussions of, quote, illegal immigration and people smuggling, once upon a time, just look at those words, illegal immigration.
Well, you just said it was illegal.
And people smuggling.
That's human trafficking.
You would think that a law would be to crack down on those two things that are explicitly criminal.
No, it's to stop people from talking about it.
And by the way, you know they mean it because both the Conservative and the Labour Party were a party to this super injunction to stop anyone from talking about this massive secret airlift of Afghans, like almost 200,000 of them, secret migration.
Like the whole establishment is so locked into their agenda.
I don't get it.
I was in the UK over the weekend, Alam, and I think ordinary people have had it with mass illegal immigration and people smuggling.
Why is the establishment digging in?
I don't get it.
That's why the law is so important to them, and it's really important to them that's come into effect at this time, because as you say, Ezra, there have been spontaneous protests this summer as well.
We had them last summer in the UK, but this summer as well, spontaneous protests outside hotels that are housing illegal migrants.
It's a domino effect.
We saw a few protests in Epping, in East London, a few weeks ago, and now they're spreading across the country.
And how are they spreading across the country?
They're spreading across the country because people are currently allowed to communicate on social media.
They're allowed to communicate on Facebook, on WhatsApp, on X.
And that's how people are finding out about these protests, finding other people who are going to them and organize.
That's how social media should be used for democratic political organizing, organic political organizing, not astroturf in any way.
This is completely organic from the bottom up.
That is precisely the type of organization that threatens the establishment, that threatens the regime.
That's why they want to shut it down.
That's why this law is so important to them.
And, you know, you mentioned that provision in the law about people smuggling and illegal immigration.
It's written in a kind of ambiguous way.
You could say that's actually they're saying, well, we want to stop people smuggling, people smugglers from communicating on social media.
But if you go to what, I bet ministers will say that in public as well when they're trying to convince people to support the law.
But if you look at what they're saying in Parliament, they're saying, no, this is the cover of misinformation that leads to public disturbances, that leads to, well, they'll call it rioting.
But what they really mean is this organic energy you're seeing in the UK to solve the immigration issue, this issue that the political establishment have ignored for decades after decades, election after election, and are still ignoring it.
And that's why there's so much anger at the grassroots level.
That's why there's so much energy.
That's what they want to shut down.
Yeah.
You know, you just listed a bunch of social media platforms from Instagram to WhatsApp to just texting, I guess.
And all the companies you named, not surprisingly, are American because that's where so many of the tech companies are.
I can't even think off the top of my head of a big British tech company.
And that's no insult to the Brits.
I just can't think of one.
Let me know if I'm missing one.
And only found as a British company.
That's Britain's contribution to the online ecosystem.
And that's the source of the hope is that these are all American companies.
And like I said, unlike the Biden administration, Trump and Secretary Rubio are using this as a way into the other countries.
Because if you're going to be finding not only the American platforms, but American users on an American platform, well, now you're messing with the First Amendment.
And I remember you and I talking about Mark Zuckerberg when he sort of had his come to Jesus moment earlier this year and said, we're not going to censor anymore.
We're not going to ban talks about misgendering.
And I remember the one thing he said with the help of the State Department, because a company cannot fight a government.
Compelling Censorship in Extreme Circumstances00:05:23
A company must obey a government unless they have their government on their side too.
So it looks like Secretary Rubio is actually backing up, and the Congress are backing up companies like Rumble and Reddit and Twitter.
Like they're actually deploying.
Give me some more details on that.
I mentioned the sanctions against this crusading Brazilian judge.
Give me another example.
This is really critical, actually, because this is the entire hope of the international censorship industry, which includes many Americans who supported censorship under the previous administration.
They've actually said many, many times that they hope laws like the European Union's Digital Services Act and the Online Safety Act will bring back some of the censorship that the administration backed on the Joe Biden.
And the Online Safety Act is actually a really great example of how they can do it.
There's a really devious provision in it.
And what it says is in extreme circumstances, if the UK is dealing with a company that's refusing to comply, that's refusing to censor its users, then what they can do is they can compel advertisers, they can compel payment processors, and they can compel internet service providers to cut off that company.
That's the North Korean style.
That's that North Korea move that Twitter was warning about in Canada.
Exactly.
And the reason that's so dangerous, Ezra, is because even if you have a platform that's very, very committed to free speech, like X, like Gab, like Rumble, like many other companies, they're only going to be as strong as the weakest leak, as the weakest link, sorry, in their business partnerships.
So if their advertisers don't hold the line as well, if their payment processes don't hold the line as well, then they can be put out of business by the UK government.
They say they'll use it in extreme circumstances.
I wonder what those extreme circumstances will be.
That's extremely dangerous.
And the only way it can be countered, I think, is if American regulators say, look, if you do this, we're going to come after you.
If you drop an American platform because a foreign government demanded that you as a payment processor or an advertiser drop them as a platform, then we, whether that's the FTC, the FCC, or some other regulatory body, will come after you.
That's the only way to counter this international censorship strategy.
It's very, very dangerous.
Right.
I was thinking about Montreal's mayor, Valerie Plant, who canceled a public venue for this Christian pastor from America and then fined a Christian church for hosting him, for saying some prayers.
And she doesn't care about headlines.
Montreal loves what she did.
But if she was banned by a State Department sanction saying she's not allowed to go to Florida every Christmas, she might think twice.
And it's not, you know, throwing her in jail.
She hasn't committed a war crime.
But if she's going to rough up American citizens and violate American senses of freedom, why should she be allowed to go party in Florida when it's cold in Montreal and let her stay there in the slush or let her go to Cuba, which she probably does anyways?
I think that Americans can help free the world by doing this.
Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if Canada brings the Online Harms Act back again.
And I think everyone in Canada is going to roll over.
The only people who will save us are either the Elon Musks of the world or Marco Rubio to the world.
We're in your hands, Alam.
The American government, yeah, they're probably the only major government at the moment who's fighting against censorship rather than fighting for censorship, fighting for more censorship.
And the other thing I would say on that note is, you know, it's not even just about regulations, also about tariffs and trade policy.
That's another lever the U.S. government can use on this sort of thing.
That's something that's been used in the case of Brazil, for example.
You look at what the U.S. said about Brazil when they introduced 50% tariffs.
They explicitly mentioned the attacks on American companies as one of the reasons for that.
And the online safety bill is following the same course.
In fact, one of the things that previous, until now, Brazil was distinct for is Brazil once arrested a Facebook employee, an employee of an American company.
This was back in 2016.
They actually arrested a Facebook employee for refusing to comply with online censorship orders.
The UK's online safety bill does exactly the same thing.
They can arrest, criminally charge and imprison people for up to two years if their company refuses to comply with Ofcom, which is UK's internet regulator.
And actually, American companies, including GAB, this was reported in Politico yesterday, have already received letters from the UK regulator warning them that if they don't comply, they could be subject to criminal charges.
They could be subject to even imprisonment if they step foot in the UK.
So American citizens are now being warned by a UK government body that they could be jailed for refusing to comply with censorship orders in that country.
Alam, I got to say that's actually far worse than the Canadian proposal in the Armline Harms Act.
They talked about fining U.S. social media companies 8% of their global revenues, the audacity, the chutzpah, the madness of that.
But even they didn't have the audacity to call for prison terms.
Radical Change in UK Law00:03:48
Just amazing.
Well, let me ask you this.
Elon Musk and Donald Trump, who were sort of close friends for an important period of time, sort of had a falling out.
I don't know if they operate together anymore, but Elon Musk's closeness to Trump, I thought, was a great encourager for the free speech movement.
Given that the men are a little bit further apart these days, does the administration remain as committed to free speech for social media, even without Elon Musk's direct participation?
Unquestionably so.
And in the course of my job, I often talk to people in the administration who are involved in free speech matters, whether that's at the State Department or at other agencies.
This is the most pro-free speech administration, I think, certainly in my life and that I've seen since I've been involved in politics and talking about politics.
They are completely committed.
And it'll be interesting to see how this plays out because you have every other Western government in the world going in the opposite direction.
But I will say this, maybe we'll end on this because we're talking about the UK.
We're talking about the public, the spontaneous public demonstrations in the UK.
We're talking about how this bill has been introduced just at a time when the UK government, I think, is the most nervous about disturbances from below, about grassroots energy from below, where they've lost the support of the British public.
They're had a dismal rating in the polls.
And this really happens to every government that comes to power in the UK because they refuse to tackle this key public concern of immigration.
But here's why the UK, I think, might be the first domino to fall.
And I wouldn't say the US has been the first domino to fall in the global regime just because it's very difficult for radical change of any kind to happen in the US.
That's just how the political institutions are set up.
They're designed to halt radical change.
The UK is the opposite.
In the UK, you don't have independent judiciary.
You don't have judges that can simply block a law if they don't like it, like we've been seeing in the US with Donald Trump's agenda.
You just have one or two federal judges throwing standards in the world.
That can't happen in the UK.
You also don't have the separation of the legislature and the executive, right?
So you don't have a White House and a House of Representatives.
All the powers are in Parliament, in the House of Commons, especially.
And you don't even have a powerful upper house in the House, in Parliament, because the House of Lords, the upper house, is not democratically elected.
They have very little legitimacy.
And as a result of that, they have very little power.
So all power in the UK is concentrated in the democratically elected body, the House of Commons.
And it's very easy for parties to win large majorities in the House of Commons.
They can't really be blocked by sort of moderate coalition, not even moderate coalitions, but regime coalitions that you see happening in Europe.
For all those reasons, it's actually possible for a serious party of reform, a party that's dedicated to rebuilding the political consensus from the ground up, from completely resetting and reversing on all the mistakes of the last few decades.
That is quite possible in the UK.
I think that's one of the reasons why they're so nervous about it, because it is kind of unique in the Western political world that they are able to reset so easily, just overturn a previous consensus so quickly without any sort of other institutions standing in their way.
If you have the right government, and the way to get the right government is to have an election, and the way for an election to elect a reforming government, a radical government, is for the people to be allowed to organize and speak freely online.
Why They're Nervous About Free Speech00:01:56
That's what they're trying to stop.
Wow.
You've been so generous with your time.
And I know you have to go.
And I know I've kept you too long, but please let me ask you one last question.
What practical advice would you have for Canadians?
And frankly, for me and rebel news, because we're not just news people, we're activists.
How can we get the attention of the White House or the State Department on censorship here?
President Trump was talking about it when he met Kirst Starmer.
He was talking like it's exciting to see him do it in the UK.
How do we get America to care about Canada?
Because we need the help.
I think what's really critical to understand with all of these laws, whether they're in Canada, the UK, or the European Union, is that their ultimate target is not merely the citizens of their own country.
Their ultimate target is America and American citizens as well.
It's American free speech that they also want to shut down because they realize that they can't let America fall to anti-regime forces.
If that happens too many times, then eventually the regime and its allies all over the world will fall to similarly reformist governments.
And that'll take away all their power.
It'll take away all their wealth.
So a lot of this is designed to stop free speech, not just in Canada, the UK or Europe, but also in America itself.
That's why you have in the Canadian law, you mentioned a percentage fine on global revenues that could cripple any tech company.
And that's exactly the same provision that you'll see in the UK Online Safety Act, which has a 10% fine on revenues, or in the European Union's Digital Services Act, which has a 6% fine on global turnover.
This is how they're going to make sure that American tech platforms, American companies are forced to install these censorship systems that can then be used against Americans as well.
Alam, I'm so grateful for your time.
It goes so quickly, but I could talk to you for hours.
I know you've got real work to do fighting for freedom online.