A teenage child looks at a screen of age-restricted content on a laptop screen in London on Jan. 17, 2023. Leon Neal/Getty Images
U.S. websites 4chan and Kiwi Farms filed a lawsuit in the United States on Aug. 27 against the United Kingdom’s media regulator, Ofcom, claiming that enforcement of the country’s Online Safety Act (OSA) violates Americans’ right to free speech.
Hailed by the UK government as the world’s first online safety law, the OSA became law in October 2023, but measures related to regulating so-called illegal content took effect in March 2025. It requires online platforms to implement measures to protect people in the UK from criminal activity, with far-reaching implications for internet governance.
