Government consultation: online harms white paper

[Victoriapestis]

First, apologies if there is already a thread on this consultation.

I lost an afternoon of my life responding to it today. I’m not up to doing links, but if you search for online harms white paper you’ll find it.

Basically, the government is proposing a regulator to police every website available in the UK where discussion/interaction takes place. This regulator will have teeth in the sense of being able to impose sanctions. Its ambit will include obvious harms like terrorism, child porn and revenge porn (all of which are, of course, illegal anyway). It will also, though, cover speech that is not unlawful. It will for instance cover ‘fake news’ and disinformation and ‘intimidation’.

This is being sold to the public as a response to the very sad Molly Russell case. (Though given the speed with which the paper is produced, I’d bet a substantial sum that it’s been in the pipeline for a long time, and this is just a helpful excuse).

I think there is no doubt whatsoever that this regulatory regime, if it comes into effect, will be used against mumsnet and against all women who say that transwomen are not women, and who call out men’s behaviour (for example I’m sure that Joe Biden and his supporters consider the coverage of him getting close to obviously distressed young girls to be fake news).

Obviously our rights to free speech on transgender issues and women’s rights are already under attack- witness twitter. But this regulator will make a real difference. It will justify the tech companies in censoring our voices. It will be relied on by all those who don’t want women to be heard, if what they say does not conform to the social orthodoxy.

For this reason I hope that others will also respond. I know there is vile stuff out there on the internet (I’m talking about the stuff which isn’t illegal, please note). But when it comes to free speech I think we need to remember the Niemoller quote. Yes, we think there’s repulsive stuff out there. But lots of people think we’re repulsive, for saying transwomen aren’t women. The ball waxer who can’t be named no doubt thinks kiwi farms is repulsive for not only naming him but documenting his behaviour.

I think this is a terrifying encroachment on free speech. I’m disgusted by the way Molly Russell’s family are being wheeled out to justify it. (If this was really about glorification of self harm, there could have been legislation targeted at this, specifically: so why not adopt this approach? Answer: because this isn’t what this is about. It is about censoring unwanted political discussion.)

And if this ‘reform’ goes ahead, in 18 months time, I dont think there will be a FWR. Or if there is, it will be run by Pippa Bunce. So I think we need to be aware of it.

I hadn’t heard. Thanks for bringing this to our attention

From the White Paper

Online safety initiatives: Analysing and countering hate speech: Box 29 The role of AI

Hateful content on digital platforms is a growing problem in the UK, inflicting harm on victims, creating and exacerbating social divisions, and eroding trust in the host platforms.
• However, despite the harm caused by hate content, we lack adequate data on its scale and scope, limiting our ability to develop more sophisticated and effective responses. Part of the challenge is that online hate takes many forms and is directed against many different targets, including ethnic minorities and women.
• A new project led by Turing is setting out to address this issue. The ‘Hate Speech: Measures and Counter-measures’ project will use a mix of natural language processing techniques and qualitative analyses to create tools which identify and categorise different strengths and types of online hate speech.
• The aim is to make these tools open and accessible to the public, and ultimately for them to be used to support a broad range of commercial and public sector providers to detect and address harmful and undesirable content. The project also aims to release annotated training datasets, enabling other researchers to further build on their work.
• Turing is planning work more broadly to study the influence of algorithmic systems on humans, as part of its initiative on safe and ethical AI.

I would be very surprised if this would be used for the benefit of women.

Link to the White Paper and the consultation

www.gov.uk/government/consultations/online-harms-white-paper

And yes, thank you OP, I share your concern about the wide ranging nature of this.

Thanks for this. I share your concerns on free speech. Hate speech seems to be the go to solution for far more intractable and serious problems. Will do more damage than good in the end.

I can see many more gender-critical voices being silenced here, if not all. This relentless wearing down of women's rights and even our right to stand up for ourselves is insidiously malicious. But then again, we are Uppitty Women and will be fighting back with everything that we have!
Thanks for the heads-up OP, I'll submit a comment.

YouTube tried something like this, a sort of peer led language policing system. It was massively abused by religious groups to shut down and demonetise atheist channels. I'm not sure whether it's still in use but a flurry of my favourite YouTubers ended up leaving for different sites and turning to Patreon supporters to keep making content. This new idea you're talking about OP will 100% be used to shut down GC debate, but also any future challenges to social orthodoxy. How can we have a healthy democracy if people are only allowed to say or think the same thing? Very scary times.

www.thedailymash.co.uk/features/would-living-in-a-fascist-state-really-be-that-bad-20190408184497

Relevant satire

There's no way a system like this wouldn't be vulnerable to regulatory capture.

Placemarking

There's a good thread on this from Anya, who is a lawyer (barrister?) in London. She's encouraging feminists to respond to the consultation for many of the reasons OPs have touched on above.

twitter.com/anyabike/status/1117330502988509184

Place marking

Thanks op, I hadn't heard and I agree it's very concerning.

Anyabike's Twitter thread includes this article in the Mail on Sunday by Alan Rusbridger - former Guardian editor - apols if it's already been posted but I can't see a link: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6919537/ALAN-RUSBRIDGER-woman-banned-Facebook-posting-two-photos.html

As an aside, I'm intrigued as to why Rusbridger chose to take this to the Mail on Sunday rather than his old newspaper.

Just bumping this for the op. I think it's really important.

Placemarking - thanks, OP, for posting. Scary shit.

I’m really sceptical of government consultations. I was just reading about one where 83% of respondents were against proposed reforms (I won’t go into the topic as it will derail) and they brought them in anyway!

Thanks for bumps all. I think it’s really important. Restrictions on speech will not benefit women.

Regarding the Alan Rusbridger article in the DM which Floisme mentions, there's a good reason why he didn't go to the Guardian with the article. Unless my memory is at fault, the photographs of the Iranian women's volleyball team were posted - and censored - because they were used to illustrate that a high proportion of the team is now men, by which I apparently mean transwomen, so this is (despite never mentioning the fact) a 'transphobic' article which the Guardian editors wouldn't touch.

Yes men can stop us from talking to each other any time they like. I'm surprised women have been "allowed" to say what they do up until now. It's really not a free speech issue. It's a patriarchy issue. They'll keep changing the goal posts, ramming us into smaller and smaller boxes. Remember that porn- which is an actual violent Hate crime against women-- is allowed to proliferate online in the name of free speech.

Men are taking the absolute piss out of us, playing cat and mouse games with us, by letting us speak about trans a little bit, but not too much. Not publishing anything of relevance to women in all major news publications. It's just a game to them. I'm disgusted with myself for thinking in my twenties that women had "made great strides" towards freedom. Naive and stupid.

Not too long and we’ll have to do something fishlike (see early Christians) to discuss our views with likeminded women. I’ll have a look at the link tomorrow / at a sane time today.

Thanks for highlighting this. I'll have a look and try to fill in the consultation.

From a non-feminist and techie approach, the Open Rights Group are running free information events on these proposals to explain their concerns and how it might affect online activity.

There's events in Cambridge, Edinburgh, London and Norwich throughout July.

www.openrightsgroup.org/about/reports/org-regulation-report-ii

I'm going to the one in Edinburgh to better understand what it's all about so I can fill in the consultation more effectively from a feminist perspective. If anyone wants to join me, feel free to PM me.