The First Amendment protects speech, but only from U.S. government action, not from private companies, not from your boss, and not from foreign governments.
It applies to everyone physically in the U.S., citizens, tourists, even undocumented immigrants, but its shield only works against federal, state, and local government attempts to censor, punish, or restrict speech, assembly, religion, press, or petitions.
Private actors can still punish you. A social media company can delete your post. A private university can write its own speech rules. Your employer can fire you. None of that violates the First Amendment because none of it is government action.
The same is true for foreign governments. If the UK government censors speech or prosecutes you for something you said, the First Amendment does not protect you at all. From a constitutional perspective, a foreign government is no different from a private company.
This shows a major gap in U.S. speech protections in a globalized world because foreign governments can chill speech made under U.S. jurisdiction without technically violating the Constitution. It raises the question of whether the U.S. should extend its protections extraterritorially for speech created here.
The UK has adopted the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/universal-declaration-of-human-rights-promoting-the-declarations-principles-75-years-on/
You can view the Declaration here on the UN website.
https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights
Anyone the UK prosecutes outside its borders can invoke Article 10, request to have the case heard in their own courtroom by their own peers, and even counter-sue the UK.
‘This could happen to any American!’
Nigel Farage MP warns US Congress that Britain is becoming authoritarian over free speech & censorship, after the arrests of Lucy Connolly and Graham Linehan.
He says the UK’s Online Safety Act is ‘a threat to trade, tech, and free speech.’ pic.twitter.com/hJaiocXaTS
— GB News (@GBNEWS) September 3, 2025
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