The Online Safety Bill, as it stands, will allow the government to determine what on-line content is legal, but has so much potential to harm that people must be kept safe from it. For some content, there is a good case for this, such as content encouraging young people to commit suicide. More controversial is censorship of content that is factually correct, but not politically correct - such as, for example, the story that SARS-COVID-2 originated in a Wuhan lab or Hunter Biden's laptop. These are just a couple of examples of content that is not as harmful as it used to be, and can now be expressed. "Legal-but-harmful" means “politically inconvenient just at the moment.”
Podcast of Lotus Eaters 18th March has an entertaining look at this.
Spiked podcast
00:23 - 14:55 Wide-ranging discussion of the political effects of the bill. The approach taken by many governments in the last few years has been to infantalise adults. A strong society requires grown ups to be responsible adults, and not rely on authorities to control what can and cannot be said.
"There was an internet study centre - I can't remember what its name was that and put out with a report ...they essentially said that the safest place in the world to be online was North Korea, because they don't have internet..." "You're not going to be confronted with any harmful or abusive messages!"
UK column
https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/uk-column-news-18th-march-2022
00:19-23:24 In depth analysis, including
use of secondary legislation & statutory instruments to avoid parliamentary scrutiny
press regulation to control "Registered News Organisations"
draconian powers Ofcom will have in relation to internet content providers.
Includes links to official documentation.
Richie Allen
https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/richieallen/episodes/2022-03-17T12_30_46-07_00
34:30-60:00 Richie discusses the UK government's Online Safety Bill and why he believes it'll be the final nail in the coffin of free speech in Britain. "There is nothing more chilling when discussing free speech than requiring media firms to control legal but harmful content. It's a censor's charter, and gives the government powers to determine what is harmful."
SaveBritain.Org
https://savebritain.org/online-safety-law-could-restrict-freedom-of-speech-and-press/
"Critics of the bill have warned that social media companies may be overzealous in their censoring of language to avoid the fines, due to its vagueness and the uncertainty around protections for the discussion of contentious issues, such as whether biological males should be allowed in female changing rooms. There is also concern social media companies whose leadership are of a socially liberal persuasion will jump on the opportunity to censor conservative users under the guise of the duty to prevent “harm” if the bill passes."
Reclaim the net
https://reclaimthenet.org/uk-online-safety-bill-censorship-parliament/
Spectator
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/my-football-analogy-for-the-free-speech-debate
"The bill contains little to stop these companies pledging to remove scads of ‘legal but harmful’ content in their terms and conditions – as they do at present – save for some wishy-washy provisions about the need to ‘take into account’ freedom of expression when deciding whether to remove ‘content of democratic importance’ and ‘journalistic content’ and to ‘have regard’ for free speech. To understand how ineffective these clauses are likely to be, think of the different legal duties included in the bill as being like football teams. The duty to remove ‘content that is harmful to adults’ is Manchester City. The need to ‘take into account’ and ‘have regard’ for freedom of expression is Plymouth Argyle."
Telegraph
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2022/03/17/online-safety-bill-makes-mockery-free-speech/
"The Online Safety Bill, true to its title, reeks of safetyism. Liberal free speech values are fast becoming relics of our best traditions, left behind in the wake of safety fundamentalism that even encapsulates emotional safety. Indeed, the Bill creates new communications offences for speech that may cause “psychological harm”. There is no clinical definition here, and I have a feeling that in the Twittersphere this threshold will be interpreted very liberally. In a piece for this paper, Dorries likened this monstrous speech bureaucracy to the requirement of seatbelts, as though suppressing lawful speech is life-saving. Well, strap in and buckle up – Dorries’ brave new internet will be quite a ride"
Daily Mail
"New online safety Bill ‘doesn’t do enough to guard Press freedom'...but Dorries says she’ll ensure free speech isn’t censored by tech giants"
The Verge
"Ben Packer, a partner at law firm Linklaters, told The Verge that the new offenses for tech managers focused on denying or distorting information — and that this was a narrower remit than suggested by earlier recommendations. “Though tech companies will still be concerned about the breadth and reach of the ‘information offenses,’ there will be relief that the government is not proposing to ask tech companies to nominate a fall guy to be criminally liable for corporate failures to comply with the safety duties,” said Packer."