America’s First Amendment binds our government, not the rest of the world. So what happens when your speech can cross the globe in an instant? Foreign censorship attempts stop feeling so foreign.
In 2024, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner sought to force X to suppress footage of a church stabbing, not just for Australians, but for users around the world. FIRE and the Electronic Frontier Foundation intervened, warning about the consequences for speakers and audiences outside Australia. The Federal Court ultimately refused to extend the worldwide order, warning against allowing one country to decide what social media users elsewhere could see.
But the fight exposed a serious concern for free speech advocates: If every country can impose its speech codes on a global platform, the world’s most restrictive laws could become everybody’s problem.
And governments don’t even need to ban speech outright. Pressuring tech companies with massive fines, ID verification schemes, and “risk mitigation” requirements is more than enough to make any general counsel nervous.
So, in the race to the bottom, whose rules should govern the global internet?
Tonight’s panel brings together three people confronting this question. Attorney Preston Byrne represents American platforms directly targeted by foreign regulators. FIRE’s Sarah McLaughlin studies how authoritarian speech controls escape their national borders. Techdirt founder Mike Masnick has spent decades examining how internet architecture concentrates — or disperses — control. And the inimitable Kmele Foster will guide our discussion of who gets to draw the international borders of censorship.
Preston Byrne (X), Preston Byrne is a dual qualified American and English lawyer who works in technology law. He was counsel to the plaintiffs in 4chan v. UK Office of Communications
Sarah McLaughlin (X), senior scholar, global expression at FIRE, author of Authoritarians in the Academy, writes Free Speech Dispatch for FIRE
Mike Masnick (Bluesky), founder & editor of Techdirt, the founder & CEO of the Copia Institute, and a board member at Bluesky
Kmele Foster (X), editor-at-large at Tangle News, and partner at Big Think
