❓WHAT HAPPENED: Top conservative news site Citizen Free Press has been blocked on British train Wi-Fi networks after being labeled “contentious.”
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Citizen Free Press, Virgin Wi-Fi, The National Pulse Editor-in-Chief Raheem Kassam, British commuters, and British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
📍WHEN & WHERE: September 2025, on British trains.
💬KEY QUOTE: “I’m on a train in England and can’t access [Citizen Free Press] because it’s blocked for being ‘contentious.'” – Raheem Kassam
🎯IMPACT: The incident has sparked criticism of the United Kingdom’s growing censorship regime, previously criticized by U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance and other senior officials in the Trump administration.
Top conservative news site Citizen Free Press has been blocked on public Wi-Fi networks aboard British trains. The restriction, justified by network provider Virgin Wi-Fi on grounds that the site has been branded “contentious,” was highlighted by Raheem Kassam, Editor-in-Chief at The National Pulse.
Kassam shared his experience on X (formerly Twitter), posting a screenshot of the restriction notice he encountered while travelling in England, where he is covering the annual party conference for Nigel Farage’s Reform Party. “I’m on a train in England and can’t access [Citizen Free Press] because it’s blocked for being ‘contentious,'” Kassam reported.
I’m on a train in England and can’t access @CitizenFreePres because it’s blocked for being “Contentious.”
Meanwhile, @Keir_Starmer maintains there is still “free speech” in the United Kingdom. pic.twitter.com/GUpbZikTIa
— Raheem J. Kassam (@RaheemKassam) September 5, 2025
The incident has fueled further debate about the erosion of free speech in Britain under Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party. While people have long been subject to arrest for so-called “grossly offensive” communications in Britain, speech restrictions have tightened since Starmer entered office in mid-2024, particularly following the wave of anti-immigration protests that followed the mass murder of multiple young girls by a migration-background teenager in Southport, England.
Last August, England’s chief prosecutor warned that the “offense of incitement to racial hatred involves publishing or distributing material which is insulting or abusive, which is intended to or likely to stir up racial hatred,” and, “If you retweet that, you’re republishing it, and potentially, you’re committing that offense.“
He added that “dedicated police officers” were “scouring social media,” looking to identify the people behind such posts and reposts and arrest them.
In one high-profile recent incident, Irish comedy writer Graham Linehan was arrested by a team of armed police officers on landing at London’s Heathrow Airport from Arizona, for posts on X critical of transgenderism and transgender activists.
Notably, Starmer has overseen the implementation of Britain’s new Online Safety Act—initially championed by the formerly governing Conservative Party—that mandates platforms and service providers to filter supposedly harmful content. Overseen by government regulator Ofcom, it has been framed as protecting Internet users, particularly children, from harmful content such as child pornography. However, the legislation is so broad that it has already been used to censor mere opinions, including video of speeches in Parliament discussing the Muslim rape gangs scandal.
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