As free speech faces attacks both domestically and internationally, the response from one U.S.-based company, filled with uniquely American wit, suggests maybe a hamster should become the new mascot of free expression.

4chan, the online forum celebrated and attacked for its commitment to free speech, has deployed a new weapon against censorious bureaucrats: hamsters. Ofcom, the United Kingdom’s communications regulatory agency, recently fined 4chan £520,000 ($671,320) for violating the UK’s Online Services Act (OSA). 4chan responded to the fine by sending Ofcom a picture of a giant hamster eating a peanut.

4chan is being charged with violating the U.K.’s age verification requirements, as well as failing to provide Ofcom with an “illegal content risk assessment,” and not “specifying how individuals are to be protected from illegal content” in its terms of service. In addition to the hamster picture, 4chan’s lawyer, Preston Byrne, sent Ofcom a letter reminding the agency “the United Kingdom lost the American Revolutionary War” and “we are not in the mood to discuss the matter further, and have not been in the mood for 250 years.”

The U.K. does have the power to ban children from accessing 4chan and other sites by requiring that U.K.-based service providers block access to it or other sites it deems harmful to minors. However, Ofcom cannot force an American social media company to obey the U.K.’s laws. This is especially the case when the laws in question violate the U.S. Constitution.

Additionally, several U.S. federal courts have already ruled that age verification laws violate the First Amendment. This is because these laws could falsely identify an adult as a minor and thus block their access to material that they have a constitutionally protected right to view.

4chan’s irreverent challenge to U.K. censors could not have come at a more appropriate time. Unfortunately, our socialist neighbors across the pond are not the only ones coming after free speech. Florida’s Governor, Ron DeSantis, recently signed into law a measure that allows the governor and a few others to declare groups as terrorist organizations if they engage in acts deemed to be extremist.

For those that support DeSantis, this sounds like a great deal. But, when looking at policy like this it is important to imagine how politicians with different views might use this power. For instance, Bernie Sanders could easily make the argument that a Capitalist Club is extremist, or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez might declare a gun club to be extremist.

Our nation was founded and has grown and changed because of people willing to speak out at the risk of being considered extremists. The Federalist Papers were published anonymously. Famously, Justice Marshall Harlan in the 1958 case of NAACP v. Alabama (in which the court protected the NAACP’s right to shield its membership list from the prying eyes of segregationist state governments) said, “inviolability of privacy in group association may in many circumstances be indispensable to preservation of freedom of association, particularly where a group espouses ‘dissident beliefs.’”

Free speech provides a voice to the minority, but it also provides a voice to the powerless, or even just the less powerful. The government has the ability to wield guns, jails, fines, and therefore power. Sometimes the only way to push back is with our words and wit.

Thankfully, the use of words and wit is something that Americans are pretty good at. Now is the time to start flexing those muscles, not just domestically, but globally too. Maybe we need the hamster to start making appearances around the U.S. as a sign of American defiance against oppressors. It is hard to imagine an image that could better rage bait those who would like to suppress free speech and opposition than a nice friendly hamster. Now that is free speech.

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Copyright 2026 Charles Sauer, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Charles Sauer is the president of the Market Institute and the author of “Profit Motive” Sauer can be reached at [email protected].