{"id":35620,"date":"2023-09-19T17:30:17","date_gmt":"2023-09-19T16:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/?p=35620"},"modified":"2023-09-20T12:12:14","modified_gmt":"2023-09-20T11:12:14","slug":"internet-censorship-galore-as-uk-online-safety-bill-becomes-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/2023\/09\/internet-censorship-galore-as-uk-online-safety-bill-becomes-law.html","title":{"rendered":"Internet Censorship Galore as UK Online Safety Bill Becomes Law"},"content":{"rendered":"

Get ready, it’s going to be a rocky ride. The UK Government’s new Online Safety Bill (OSB) is finally set to become law after passing through both houses of parliament today, largely unopposed. The goal is to tackle “harmful<\/em>” content online, but the result may be a regime that has a chilling effect on freedom of expression.<\/p>\n

On the surface, it all sounds sensible and well-intentioned. After all, it’s widely understood, and few could disagree, that the old model of self-regulation has struggled to keep pace with the changing online world, which has allowed far too much \u201charmful<\/em>\u201d content to slip through a fairly weak net. Examples cover everything from child abuse and terrorism to racism, animal cruelty, Russian propaganda, anti-vaxxers and so forth.<\/p>\n

NOTE:<\/strong> Ofcom<\/a> holds the unenviable task of setting out the new code, regulation, and enforcement.<\/div>\n

The OSB has thus been designed to tackle this problem, such as by pressuring all internet sites and online content providers – from big social media firms (e.g. Facebook, X, Instagram etc.) to small blogs – to act and take more responsibility for the content on their platforms, or face the consequences (e.g. sites blocked by broadband ISPs, fines, prison sentences and making sites people liable for what others may say on their platforms).<\/p>\n

However, trying to strike the right balance between Freedom of Expression<\/strong>, individual Privacy<\/strong> and outright Censorship <\/strong>is a difficult thing to get right, particularly when attempting to police the common and highly subjective public expression of negative human thought.<\/p>\n

Not to mention complex issues of context (e.g. people joking about blowing up a city vs actual terrorists), parody and political speech. Humans often get it wrong, and automated filtering systems are even worse.<\/p>\n

Complexity and caveats<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

Most politicians know little to nothing about how social media, websites and the wider internet itself actually functions, as well as the economic models that underpin it. For example, in the online world a single person – on a tiny shoestring budget – can run a blog and member forum that might be read by tens of thousands or even millions of people. The law threatens to decimate this model, and for many sites the only solution to avoid liability may be to prevent their readers from speaking in the first place (i.e. censorship by the backdoor of extreme liability).<\/p>\n

The new rules will also seek to give users an avenue of appeal for any removed content, which must be replaced if found to have been wrongfully removed. But that risks putting sites that allow user-generated content (millions of them) into a bit of a damned if they do, damned if they don’t boat.<\/p>\n

In order to manage their liability, many services may end up adopting automated filtering<\/strong> systems (only economically viable for the biggest sites) \u2013 since manually moderating all content on major platforms would be economically impossible. But that may struggle given the aforementioned rule for appeals.<\/p>\n

On top of that, the final legislation still contains a threat to introduce the scanning of private messages in the future (e.g. hunting for child abuse and terrorism content), assuming technology becomes available that can do so through existing End-to-End Encryption<\/strong> (E2EE) systems (here<\/a>) – something many experts in the field consider to be very unlikely.<\/p>\n

The requirement for an Age Verification System<\/strong> (AVS) on sites that contain adult or pornographic content also remains in the final text. But enforcing it \u2013 and the huge privacy implications that would entail (remember how many people committed suicide after the \u2018Ashley Madison’ hack?) \u2013 remains an extremely difficult problem to solve and not one that smaller websites would be able to apply, due to obstacles of cost and technical or legal feasibility.<\/p>\n

Broadly speaking, the new law seems set to force an intolerable level of liability and legal complexity upon all services, particularly those containing user-generated content. But this rather overlooks the fact that the vast majority of smaller services, many of which may be blogs or micro-businesses, simply won’t have the budget, skills or legal experience necessary to stand any realistic chance of properly implementing such complex rules.<\/p>\n

What comes next?<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

In fairness, the strictest rules will only fall on so-called Category 1<\/strong> platforms, referring to the highest risk user-to-user services<\/span><\/span> (e.g. big social media firms). By comparison, different and softer rules may be applied to Category 2A<\/strong> services (e.g. internet search firms) and Category 2B<\/strong> (e.g. lower risk user-to-user services, such as smaller websites).<\/p>\n

Exact details on where the thresholds for these categories will be set are yet to be determined, and that will also require secondary legislation. Prior to that, Ofcom<\/a> will need to conduct various studies and consultations before being able to set out their final code, which could take anything up to 18 months and may yet produce some common sense outcomes. We suspect the regulator will then need to allow more time for implementation, which is likely to be very tedious, particularly for smaller sites.<\/p>\n

Big questions also remain to be answered by Ofcom as it moves to develop the necessary code, such as how long sites and platforms in different categories will be given to remove or assess flagged \/ moderated content. Lest we forget that smaller sites are run by human beings and not robots – people need to sleep and take breaks, so overly strict rules for 2B platforms may not be workable.<\/p>\n

James Baker, Open Right Group Campaigns Manager, said:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“No one disputes that tech companies could do more to keep children safe online but the Online Safety Bill is an overblown legislative mess that could seriously harm our security by removing privacy from internet users. The Bill will also undermine the freedom of expression of many people in the UK.<\/p>\n

While the UK government has admitted it\u2019s not possible to safely scan all of our private messages, it has granted Ofcom the powers to force tech companies to do so in the future. These are powers more suited to an authoritarian regime not a democracy and could harm journalists and whistleblowers, as well as domestic violence survivors, parents and children who want to keep their communications secure from online predators and stalkers.<\/p>\n

The Bill also poses a huge threat to freedom of expression with tech companies expected to decide what is and isn\u2019t legal, and then censor content before it\u2019s even been published. This re-introduces prior restraint censorship for the written word back into UK law for the first time since the 1600s. In addition, young people, whom the law is supposed to protect, could be denied access to large swathes of the web, including resources that provide them with information and support.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the biggest failing has been the lack of detail in how these extraordinary powers will be implemented. It\u2019s down to Ofcom to sort this mess and we call on them to work with cyber experts, tech companies and civil society to minimise the harms to our fundamental rights.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Technology Secretary, Michelle Donelan, said:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“The Online Safety Bill is a game-changing piece of legislation. Today, this government is taking an enormous step forward in our mission to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online.<\/p>\n

I am immensely proud of what we have achieved with this bill. Our common-sense approach will deliver a better future for British people, by making sure that what is illegal offline is illegal online. It puts protecting children first, enabling us to catch keyboard criminals and crack down on the heinous crimes they seek to commit.<\/p>\n

I am deeply thankful to the tireless campaigning and efforts of parliamentarians, survivors of abuse and charities who have all worked relentlessly to get this bill to the finish line.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

However, the heart of the OSB is still in absolutely the right place, even if the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The internet can be a heaven for some of the most vile conspiracy theories, bullying, racism, child abuse, terrorism, trolling and harassment. Whole communities have even sprung up around these topics, and hostile governments often exploit them.<\/p>\n

Suffice to say, the desire to rid the online world of such things is more than understandable – particularly for those who have suffered the most. In keeping with that, it’s easy to see why the bill has been able to attract so much support from the wider electorate and cross-party MPs. But the problem is not with that goal, it’s with the government’s overly-broad sledgehammer approach to achieving it.<\/p>\n

The assumption seems to be that all sites will already have the necessary development skills, budget, knowledge, legal experience and time to implement everything the bill puts into law. But what may be viable for bigger sites, is not workable for everybody else. On the flip side, Ofcom will almost certainly lack the resources to tackle everything, which is likely to restrict their focus to the biggest players.<\/p>\n

Finally, we can\u2019t always assume the country will, in the future, be governed by a truly democratic system that protects our freedoms and privacy. Giving a future anti-democratic government such control over what we can access and how we communicate would thus seem to be unwise. Future mission creep could easily make it dangerous.<\/p>\n

For a more practical example of what this could mean, just look at what happened in the USA after the Supreme Court effectively banned abortion. Shortly after that, sites like Instagram began banning posts from those merely talking about the experiences they’d had with abortion (example<\/a>), due to it being an age-restricted topic.<\/p>\n

As it stands, we seem to be sleepwalking toward a Draconian censorship regime via the backdoor of cost and liability shock. But before then, Ofcom will have to figure out the code for implementing all this, and the new law may even face some legal challenges of its own as reality clashes with its overly broad legislative aspirations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Get ready, it’s going to be a rocky ride. The UK Government’s new Online Safety Bill (OSB) is finally set to become law after passing through both houses of parliament today, largely unopposed. The goal is to tackle “harmful” content online, but the result may be a regime that has a chilling effect on freedom […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,1645],"tags":[473,109,36,38,479],"class_list":["post-35620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uk_isp_news","category-key_uk_isp_industry_developments","tag-censorship","tag-internet-privacy","tag-ofcom-regulation","tag-politics","tag-security"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"yoast_head":"\nInternet Censorship Galore as UK Online Safety Bill Becomes Law - ISPreview UK<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Get ready, it's going to be a rocky ride. 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