For years, Washington has been consumed by fears of foreign influence campaigns targeting American democracy. Pundits and lawmakers constantly warn about foreign adversaries attempting to subvert American discourse through covert online ops.

Yet the most successful foreign influence operation reshaping the American internet isn’t operating out of Moscow or Beijing. It is operating in plain sight out of London… and it is working to dismantle the First Amendment state by state.

According to an investigation published by Effort News, five foreign non-governmental organizations have launched a coordinated campaign across the United States. Pushing bills across 21 statehouses and Congress, their playbook uses the shield of “child safety” to mandate digital identity frameworks. These regulations force platforms to demand government IDs, credit cards, or biometric facial scans before granting access to ordinary websites — effectively eliminating online anonymity for adults.

As someone living in the United Kingdom, I’m watching this all play out in front of me. Americans need to understand what is being imported before it is too late: in Britain, “online safety” was the Trojan horse used to kill our anonymity and enforce state-backed policing of public discourse. Now, the exact people who engineered Britain’s system are selling it to American state lawmakers who seem completely unaware of who is pulling the strings.

Skeptics might dismiss this with the classic refrain: “If you have nothing to hide, what do you have to fear?” But anonymity has always been the cornerstone of a free society. America was quite literally argued into existence under the shield of anonymity: Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay published the Federalist Papers under the pseudonym “Publius,” precisely to allow ideas to be judged on their merits, free from state reprisal or social retaliation. The secret ballot and anonymous public assembly exist for the exact same reason. When you remove anonymity, you snatch away the ability to challenge institutional power.

The investigation reveals that many of those pushing for digital IDs hold the keys to power in the United Kingdom.

Take the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). It was co-founded by Imran Ahmed and Morgan McSweeney (who served as chief of staff to former British Prime Minister Keir Starmer).

Although run by British individuals, the group spent years involved in U.S. policy debates on age verification without registering under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), leading to complaints to the Department of Justice.

Similarly, the 5Rights Foundation is an NGO founded and directed by Baroness Beeban Kidron, a member of the British House of Lords. 5Rights openly co-designed California’s Age-Appropriate Design Code (AB 2273), which was explicitly copied from the UK’s own regulatory framework.

Public records show 5Rights — acting as a foreign principal — paid the lobbying firm Capitol Connection $50,000 to push the bill through the California legislature in 2022. Yet Capitol Connection failed to disclose its foreign agent status for 5Rights under FARA until 2024, long after the bill had passed. When disclosures were finally submitted, they denied foreign government influence and conveniently left blank the section that would explain the control wielded by an unelected British parliamentarian. To date, 5Rights has engaged with 42 age-assurance and online design bills across 18 U.S. states, with 11 already signed into law.

Perhaps most shocking is where the funding comes from. The London-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), which produces reports labeling normal political dissent as “misinformation” or “anti-Ukraine narratives,” has taken in over $11.2 million directly from U.S. government grants through the State Department, Department of Justice, and Homeland Security. That dwarfs the £720,000 they received from the U.K. government. American taxpayers are literally footing the bill for a foreign think tank that advises on transatlantic censorship frameworks.

Behind these ideological NGOs stands an even more cynical player: the Age Verification Providers Association (AVPA). Dominated by British executives from identity-tech vendors like Yoti, AVPA is an industry cartel whose members stand to make millions in corporate windfalls if American statehouses force every website to purchase digital ID-checking software.

American state legislators voting for these “design codes” and age-verification bills genuinely believe they are voting for mere innocent child welfare protections.

In Britain, we were told the exact same story.

First came the U.K.’s Age Appropriate Design Code. Then came the Online Safety Act. Each step was sold as a common-sense measure to shield minors from online harm.

In Britain, the consequences have been dire; our civil liberties have been hollowed out. To follow these mandates, platforms are forced to build highly intrusive verification software: uploading government IDs, biometric facial scans, and tying real-world identities to every digital footprint. Digital anonymity — the greatest historical defense against government overreach and public ostracization — has been virtually eliminated in the U.K.

Worse, once this infrastructure is established, the mission inevitably creeps. British police routinely investigate citizens for non-crime hate incidents and social media commentary.

The reason British NGOs are targeting American statehouses is simple: in the United States, the First Amendment makes top-down federal censorship uniquely difficult. Unable to pass a direct federal speech code, foreign activists are using a state-by-state strategy. If California, Maryland, or 20 other states require websites to determine user age and assess whether platform features create vague “psychological harm,” tech companies will standardize those restrictions nationwide for operational efficiency.

State lawmakers must not continue to introduce copy-paste versions of these bills, blindly trusting foreign lobby groups.

The United States became independent from Britain almost 250 years ago precisely to reject authoritarianism. It is odd that in 2026, American state legislators are inviting unelected British peers and foreign lobbies to make the rules for Americans.

Protecting children online is a noble goal, but it cannot be achieved by adopting the playbook of an increasingly illiberal state. When lobbyists work to remove digital anonymity in America, lawmakers should remember why that anonymity exists in the first place.

It is time for states to firmly reject the British export of online censorship.

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Samiksha Bhattacharjee runs Ladies of Liberty Alliance UK, is a Young Voices UK contributor, and serves as President of the University College London Libertarian Society. You can find more of her work at Samiksha’s State of the Debate.

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