Esafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant has been called to testify before the US Congress over Australia’s Online Safety Act, with a Republican lawmaker labelling her a “noted zealot for global take-downs” and an enemy of American free speech.

Inman Grant has been given less than two weeks’ notice to testify before the committee, and a spokesperson from her office says she is considering her options. The letter, delivered exactly three weeks before the government’s world-first under-16 social media ban is set to come into effect, featured accusations that the commissioner had “colluded with pro-censorship entities”.

“As the Australian eSafety Commissioner, you are the official primarily responsible for enforcing Australia’s Online Safety Act (OSA), which imposes obligations on American companies and threatens speech of American citizens,” the letter signed by House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan read.

“Your expansive interpretation and enforcement of Australia’s OSA – including your claim of extraterritorial jurisdiction to censor speech outside of Australia – directly threatens American speech.”

The letter referenced a case in which eSafety sought to compel Elon Musk’s social media platform X to remove graphic footage of a church stabbing in Sydney. The case was later abandoned.

“Your Commission sought to compel X to remove content globally, arguing that its geo-blocking of the content was insufficient because Australians could use VPNs to access the content. Other censorship regimes, like the one in Brazil, have used similar justifications when ordering global take-downs of content and threatening fines for VPN use,” the letter read.

The platform later brought a court challenge against Inman Grant over a take-down order for a post attacking an Australian queer health expert. X was successful, describing it as “a win for free speech in Australia”.

The letter accused the US-born public servant of having “colluded with pro-censorship entities in the United States to facilitate Australia’s, and other, global censorship regimes”, referencing a speech she gave to Stanford University this year.

“Other attendees and panellists included officials from some of the entities with the worst track records of extraterritorial censorship, including the European Union and Brazil,” the letter read, claiming the university had made historical efforts to censor “lawful American speech”.

“Put plainly, the roundtable sought to facilitate cooperation with global censorship by bringing together foreign officials who have directly targeted American speech and represent a serious threat to the First Amendment.”

In a statement to this masthead, a spokesperson for eSafety said the commissioner was considering whether to agree to the request “in the context of eSafety’s current priorities”.

If Inman Grant chose to appear, she would probably do so via video link. Jordan’s letter compels Inman Grant to testify before December 2.

“It is important to remember why the eSafety Commissioner was established in 2015 as an independent regulator – to protect Australians, especially children, from a range of online harms including sexual abuse and exploitation, deepfake image-based abuse, extreme violence and terrorist propaganda, cyberbullying and exposure to age-inappropriate material including pornography, self-harm and suicide promotion,” the spokesperson said.

“The commissioner is accountable to Australia’s Minister for Communications and the Australian Parliament,” the spokesperson said.

The office of Communications Minister Anika Wells was contacted for comment.

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