'We'll fight together': Americans planning to sue Ofcom over the Online Safety Act

Writing on X, Preston Byrne - a technology and free speech lawyer - said he will be suing Ofcom "in federal court to protect all Americans from UK censorship" alongside fellow lawyer Ron Coleman.

Mr Byrne continued: "If you run a tech company affected by the Online Safety Act and want to help us stop censorship at the waterline, have your lawyers ping me on LinkedIn.

"We'll fight together."

Mr Byrne called for big tech CEOs, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai, to join him in the fight.

The lawyer added: "One big defection from European censorship regimes, and it's over. They'll never censor any American again."

It comes as Tory leader Kemi Badenoch slammed the roll-out of the Online Safety Act but refused to say she would scrap the law if she becomes Prime Minister.

Speaking to LBC's Iain Dale, the Conservative leader said of the Act: "It's clearly not working as intended. So there must be something that can [be done] to fix that.

"We're seeing the top five apps being downloaded are Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). That is a problem. It's not working."

The Online Safety Act came into effect on Friday, overhauling how Brits are able to interact with the internet in efforts to protect children from harmful content.

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Earlier in the conversation, she had expressed concern about repealing the Act which came into force last week.

Ms Badenoch said: "My worry about scrapping the Act is that this is something that's been a long time coming. There've always been issues. There were some safeguards that were put in place.

"What's going wrong? Let's look at how we can improve them but the Government needs to get a grip. Because what really worries me is that we're going to end up in a situation where all of the bad guys end up finding ways to circumvent before the Government gets a handle on it."

Under the rules, social media companies and websites need to meet strict rules - including "robust" age checks to prevent access to pornography.

On the furore surrounding the implementation of the Act, the Tory leader said: "This was a very predictable mess. There is a lot of material that can cause significant harm. but I also believe in free speech and government is not the best enforcer.

"They've created blanket rules that people can get round using VPNs.

On the age verification measure contained in the law, Ms Badenoch said: "Parents need to do more. Our policy is to ban smartphones in schools."

The Act has been thrust back into the political spotlight after the Science and Technology Secretary, Peter Kyle, told broadcasters today that Reform UK leader Mr Farage was on the side of “extreme pornographers” and “Jimmy Savile”.

The accusations came after Mr Farage's party pledged to scrap the Online Safety Act if they came to power at the next election.

Science Secretary Peter Kyle slammed the decision by the Reform leader to scrap online safety legislation, noting it would benefit "predators".

Insisting the legislation is necessary, Mr Kyle told Nick Ferrari at Breakfast: "I'm not going to be able to protect every single bit of harmful content from getting into every single child's feed.

He added: "What we can do is take a very, very significant step forward."

The Cabinet minister said the Reform leader is “on the side of turning the clock back” to when “strangers can get in touch via messaging apps with children”.

Mr Farage has demanded the Cabinet minister apologise for the accusation.