The UK Government’s new Culture Secretary, Michelle Donelan, has signalled that the mess of complex and confusing legislation that is the Online Safety Bill (OSB), which seeks to tackle “harmful” internet content (i.e. via website blocks by broadband ISPs, fines and other sanctions), is likely to be softened before it returns to parliament.
The idea of creating a law to tackle some of the worst aspects of internet content is a noble one and long overdue (e.g. terrorist content, bullying, racism and hate speech, child abuse, self-harm, suicide imagery and conspiracy theories that incite violence etc.). At present, far too much of this slips through the cracks of the weak self-regulatory approach, as aptly demonstrated so many times via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc. (they were slow to stop ISIS, dangerous conspiracy theories and political leaders inciting violence).
However, the reality of trying to actually achieve such an outcome, and then extending that to tackle vague areas like “legal but harmful” content, ended up creating an ugly and bloated mess of overbearing legislation. Over the past year, the bill has become somewhat of a Frankenstein’s monster. It’s huge, it’s complex, it tries to do too much, and it places a massive administrative and legal burden on even smaller sites.
Advertisement
Faced with such a hefty level of liability and the threat of harsh punishments (possibly even arrest), many sites and content platforms will simply play it safe and censor what people say by default via automated filters (these often get things wrong) or remove user input entirely. Put another way, the OSB failed to strike the right balance between preserving Freedom of Expression and fostering outright Censorship.
This is of course what happens when you attempt to police the common and highly subjective public display of negative human thought, while trying to balance that against complex issues of context (e.g. people joking about blowing up a city in a video game vs actual terrorists), parody and political speech – all of which is a monumentally difficult task. Humans often get it wrong, and automated systems are even worse.
At present we don’t know the details, but the BBC reports that the Culture Secretary intends to alter part of the OSB before “quickly” bringing it back to parliament to become law “as soon as possible to protect children“. The focus seems to be on the most contentious area of their legislation, which deals with the convoluted rules for tackling so-called “legal but harmful” material. The area this covers is due to form part of secondary legislation.
Ms Donelan told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
“My clear objective is to get this bill back to the House quickly, to edit the bit that we’ve been very upfront that we’re editing and to make sure that we get it into law. That element is in relation to adults – the bits in relation to children and online safety will not be changing.”
However, this does create somewhat of a dilemma, since most websites cannot identify who is visiting their pages (adult or child), at least not without first age verifying all users. Age verification is already a part of the OSB, but enforcing it – and the huge privacy implications that would entail – is an extremely difficult problem to solve and not one that most regular websites would be able to apply due to obstacles of cost and technical or legal feasibility.
Advertisement
The strong suspicion is that it will take significantly more than a few government tweaks to fix the OSB, since right now you’d probably need to be a lawyer to fully understand how its implementation would work in a particular setting and most people are not lawyers, nor could many smaller sites afford to hire one for such a tedious task.
This hideous government overreach does not need editing, it needs complete scrapping
As an example these “dangerous conspiracy theories” like the ones involving the virus origins were correct from the start: Anthony Fauci and Peter Daszak were using US taxpayer funds in the Wuhan lab, which had poor health and safety standards, to work on gain of function research on bat coronaviruses and the UN then covered it up for China as their head is beholden to the CCP “China was quick to release the genome” when they literally had it for months and “the virus is not transmitted from human to human”. As were the ones questioning the lockdowns, which we are still suffering the consequences and reaping none of the benefits
It’s a massive slippery slope to censorship. Don’t want kids watching bad stuff? Don’t let them on the internet unsupervised and dont give them tiktok accounts
That remark is more a reference to the nutters who incited and committed violence against telecoms engineers and critical broadband/mobile networks because they thought this was how the COVID-19 virus had spread.
The solution is never to censor opposing speech but to debunk it publicly. In this case even kids could win the argument by simply defining what a biological virus is and how “mUh iNtErNeT” is not a transmission vector
Government or media censoring certain speech, especially when it goes against their own vested interests, actually empowers that certain speech to the individuals that the speech has resonated with
It’s all about shutting down opposing arguments so they can impose their will on you.
“think of the children” has been a common alibi of tyrants.
Totally agree with John. This should be scrapped.
We already have laws in place for racism, terrorism, suicides etc etc.
This is just ANOTHER way to implement the Chinese style spy and control system.
You should all be concerned as to why the government want to constantly choose what we can and can’t see. Isn’t it obvious what they’re doing?
Oh dear… they are already here… who’s next to be called in conspiracy nutjob bingo?.. Someone of Semitic origin no doubt.
Though I agree such legislation is overreach… stopped clocks and all that…
The average leftist NPC ladies and gentleman
Zero arguments just the common ad hominem “they disagree with my govt approved message so they must be nutjobs!!”
People like this is why politicians have a clear pass in enforcing their agenda through censorship
^^ Case in point ^^
P.s. You can’t reason with crazy, you can’t argue with stupid… oh.. that’s another “leftist NPC ad hominem”… “people like” me eh…
This is what happens when 20-something-year-old civil servants are allowed access to the internet.
Or MI5.
Yes, gaslight them and call into question their sanity etc. Works wonders…
Anyone who is against free speech does not want an argument, they just want power.
They literally have no arguments, just resort to petty insults and pretend they are superior
Imagine being this upset that others are trying to protect your freedom.
I hope you’re okay, you don’t seem well.
^^ They’re all coming out of the woodwork now… ^^
Go on. Back to Thames House with you. I’m sure theres some actual crime going on somewhere that you should be attending to. Or have your masters put you on the social media duty.
BBC had the absolute best picture for their article on this draconian nonsense. It was 3 children, and one of them placed her hands over the other kids eyes so she can’t see anything. Brilliant choice, very fitting.
Also love the gaslighting government/authority people that come to join us. Yes, you shouldn’t question anything because if you do, we’ll label you a nutter and gaslight you.
The most distasteful part of the OSB was hiring a massive porn conglomerate to somehow create the one true age verification system that the gov’t wanted to implement, giving the keys to the folks with a vested interest to get people looking at the smut they’re “protecting” people from. The whole thing just stank of jobs for the boys level corruption we’ve come to expect from the Tories.
It needs scrapping. It’s the Tory version of Blair’s stupid ID cards for everyone policy where millions (billions) was haemorrhaged before it inevitably sank as its massively overreaching.
As a side note, I hope people stick to facts rather than covid denial and conspiracy theories on this website, it’s ISPreview FFS, not the nutjob revue.
You dismissing facts by labeling them “covid denial” when nothing of the sort has been stated, literally no covid has been denied, is another pro authoritarian NPC gaslight to dismiss anyone questioning the narrative. This is exactly the same tactic as the ones labeling someone who had covid twice but is questioning the legitimacy of having a 4th jab as an antivaxxer because the holy word of the government can never be questioned
Facts were stated. Anthony Fauci has been proved a fraud and removed from public function. Public hearings are available online for anyone who wishes to check them
oh god another ‘tories dunnit’ one. Global inflation ? tories did it. Global energy price problem ? tories did it. Russian gas pipeline closed? tories did it.
Get a life, constantly blaming the tories doesn’t help your cause. Instead it makes labour voters look like idiots who can’t tell the truth ever. Now, go back in time a little bit and look up who came up with the idea first. It wasn’t your beloved tories. Just like how the tories get the blame for immigrant detention centres that were built under the Blair/Brown era.
No doubt that porn company saw the financial benefit of collaborating with the state to the detriment of their rivals and everyone else.
@Wakey Wakey: I think I was fairly critical of both Labour and the Tories in my post, I’ve only blamed them for the things I ought to be blamed for, namely the many questionable deals that involved giving jobs to people and organisations that are not up to the jobs they’ve been contracted to deliver!
@John, literally no one cares that you think Dr. Fauci, an epidemiologist thrust into the spotlight during a pandemic, is Satan and in the pocket of George Soros or whatever boogeyman you want to bore us all stiff with over and over. Covid is now endemic and most of us have moved on, as should you. Stick to talking about the interwebs.
@phoenix you sure care, otherwise you wouldn’t be resorting to an ad hominem calling me a nutjob for presenting a fact based example of what was constituted as “harmful but legal” under this bill. I’m very much on topic but if the truth hurts your feelings then you shouldn’t be looking at online comments
I have moved on from covid long ago, you’re the one still using the “covid denial” gaslight. I called you out on the term and instead of standing by your statement, you double down by trying to place words in my mouth. You leftist labour lovers are all the same just misconstrue arguments, insult, zero arguments
@John
Me: criticises labour in the parent comment
John: “you double down by trying to place words in my mouth”
Also John: “You leftist labour lovers”
LOL.
I am of the opinion we need less censorship on the internet not more. And for all these claims of we must protect people from terrorism. Well I might believe that if Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Instagram and all the rest didn’t ban the sitting president of the united states for (allegedly) inciting terrorism. But allowed Hamas, Hezbollah, Antifa to remain on their platforms and almost never take down their posts.
Or very recently Andrew Tate being scrubbed off big tech for daring to push for men to value themselves
Censorship goes as far as the leftist state propaganda Canadian Broadcast Corporation trying to censor Ben Shapiro, a jewish baseline conservative, as a dangerous radical extremist, just because he has one of the most viewed podcasts in the entire world, especially among young men. The “radical views” they claim he holds: saying that men are not women, that men should strive to get married and become responsible fathers and that porn and drugs are bad
No he was putting women down and causing all kinds of stuff – that’s why he was scrubbed and rightly so. Saying he could have an 18yr old and be her 2nd or 3rd guy. I mean come on.. he’s an idiot anyone else would be hunted and called names
It’s common for 18 year olds to not be virgins. 18 is the legal age for consent in most countries. He’s not advocating for grooming like many on the left are trying to normalize the acronym MAP, yet they are not being censored and instead offered positions in universities
Your subjective opinion of the ideal relationship is not the baseline on whether someone should be censored or not. Either something is illegal and the person should be arrested (which is the evil part of this bill turning opposing speech into motives for arrest), or he/she should be able to speak freely so that people can have an honest debate
You are free to disagree but you have no right in prohibiting what anyone says
Another high profile recent ban: Gays Against Groomers. Wiped out simultaneously from Paypal, Venmo and Google. The dangerous ideology they hold? They take a stance against castrating and mutilating kids.
It’s great that the Tavistock NHS clinic has closed down but kids are in danger when even the protected group of gay people is no match for the big tech agenda
If anything, the government needs to impose anti censorship laws