The US State Department regularly asses human right in countries around the world. The latest report about the UK is particularly scathing. The US State Department Summary reads: The human rights situation worsened in the
United Kingdom during the year. Significant human rights issues included credible reports of serious restrictions on freedom of expression, including enforcement of or threat of criminal or civil laws in order to limit expression;
and crimes, violence, or threats of violence motivated by antisemitism. The government sometimes took credible steps to identify and punish officials who committed human rights abuses, but prosecution and punishment for such
abuses was inconsistent.
The US report is critical of the UK's censorship law, particularly The Online Safety Act: There were laws in the United Kingdom (UK) that restricted freedom of speech in
certain areas or allowed local councils to establish areas with restrictions on freedom of speech. The law authorized UK authorities, including the Office of Communications (Ofcom), to monitor all forms of communication for speech
they deemed illegal. The Online Safety Act of 2023, which came into force in 2024, defined the category of online harm and expressly expanded Ofcom's authority to include American media and technology firms with a substantial
number of British users, regardless of whether they had a corporate presence in the UK. Under the law, companies were required to engage in proactive illegal content risk assessment to mitigate the risk of users encountering speech deemed illegal by
Ofcom. Experts warned that one effect of the bill could be government regulation to reduce or eliminate effective encryption (and therefore user privacy) on platforms. On April 1, the Scottish government implemented the Hate Crime
and Public Order (Scotland) Act, including the introduction of offenses stirring up hatred through threatening or abusive behavior and the communication of threatening or abusive material.
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