Online Safety Bill

[Mollyollydolly]

This is very worrying. Flagged up by Index on Censorship. Another piece of legislation designed to shut women up advised by Stonewall, Fawcett et al.
See Nick Cohen article
www.spectator.co.uk/article/beware-boris-s-sinister-crackdown-on-free-speech

Maya's twitter thread
"New Online Safety Bill will be a disaster for freedom of speech.

It is based on the concept of "Duty of Care": proactive censorship of entirely legal content on the basis of potential psychological harms.

The Duty of Care Framework comes from a consortium of "be kind" NGOs"

twitter.com/MForstater/status/1408067326520414209

It never bloody ends.

From the Nick Cohen article.
"Can you imagine how lobbyists in the trans debate or any other controversy will use it? Partisans of every cause will be able to say that they suffer psychological 'harm' when they hear arguments they oppose. And no one will be able to prove otherwise, because an outsider can never quantify psychological damage.

For this reason, the law has shied away from treating mental wounds as the equivalent of physical injuries. A broken leg is tangible. The hurt caused by an argument is subjective. How can you judge it?

The list of principles that the Online Safety bill breaks is long and alarming. The rule of law, most obviously, because the government wants the power to ban and silence people who have committed no offence."

Another link

www.indexoncensorship.org/2021/06/governments-online-safety-bill-will-be-catastrophic-for-ordinary-peoples-freedom-of-speech-says-david-davis-mp/

I read Maya's thread on this and the pressure seems to becoming from a variety of NGO's.

I'll admit to being confused about where the current government stand on this because they've been fairly vocal about free speech on campuses etc... so this feels incongruent with other stances.

I agree, it seems to be in direct opposition to everything they've said.

Bumping this because I've only just really registered it's happening.

Justine in the Times:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/509e02fe-7958-11ec-a9ac-7b4ca33c4cb4?shareToken=db40556ed781642871fd7faa27ec8ecc

In the mail:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9775737/Mumsnet-debates-silenced-web-law-warn-campaigners.html

Here's the Draft.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/draft-online-safety-bill

On the face of it, some rgulation of online comms seems needed - rape/death threats are not okay, nor should children be able to access porn, pro-ana sites, etc.

But who will decide what is acceptable to censor?

www.spectator.co.uk/article/beware-boris-s-sinister-crackdown-on-free-speech

'The government’s draft Online Safety bill imposes a ‘duty of care’ on internet companies to remove content that may cause ‘psychological harm’. If they fail to do so, they face crippling fines from the media regulator Ofcom.

Harm is not properly defined in the bill. Instead it is left hanging as a dangerously fuzzy concept that can be picked by any interest group or pack of heresy hunters that wishes to exploit '

'The potential exists for the government and Ofcom to decide that ‘harmful’ is whatever harms their political interests and use the law to silence free debate.'

Shit. This is far worse than I had realised.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/fcf25bb2-85f7-11ec-b939-57ea9f594ba1?shareToken=fa5a8644408d644fcfe780207de69a9b

'The bill will also strengthen protection for domestic abuse survivors by outlawing certain harmful online activity that forms part of coercive and controlling behaviour by an abuser.'

'Next month, the UK will go further than any other country to bring order and responsibility to the online world, as the government introduces the Online Safety Bill to parliament. '

• Dorries

'I’ve extended the offences on the bill to include hate crime, fraud, the sale of illegal drugs or weapons, people-smuggling and the illegal sex trade. It also now includes revenge porn, encouraging or assisting suicide, and cyber-stalking. If it’s illegal offline, it’s illegal online.'

hate crime - how is this defined?

'We’re also updating our existing criminal law so that it will tackle the toxic online behaviour of individuals who threaten and spread lies online.

A stalker can post what looks like a harmless photo of a road sign on Facebook. To a victim, it’s a terrifying warning that they were — perhaps still are — on their street.'

• what does this mean, anyone posting a road sign could be prosecuted? I want to know far more about this and how things will be defined.

By the by, this is also Nadine Dorries:

'Be seen within a mile of my daughters and I will nail your balls to the floor... using your own front teeth. Do you get that?'

twitter.com/NadineDorries/status/403985900172247040

The joint committee's report contained this:

"We endorse the Law Commission’s recommendations for new criminal offences in its reports, Modernising Communications Ofences and Hate Crime Laws. The reports recommend the creation of new offences in relation to cyberflashing, the encouragement of serious self-harm, sending flashing images to people with photo-sensitive epilepsy with intent to induce a seizure, sending knowingly false communications which intentionally cause non-trivial emotional, psychological, or physical harm, communications which contain threats of serious harm and stirring up hatred on the grounds of sex or gender, and disability. We welcome the Secretary of State’s intention to accept the Law Commission’s recommendations on the Communications Offences. The creation of these new offences is absolutely essential to the effective system of online safety regulation which we propose in this report. We recommend that the Government bring in the Law Commission’s proposed Communications and Hate Crime offences with the Online Safety Bill, if no faster legislative vehicle can be found. Specific concerns about the drafting of the offences can be addressed by Parliament during their passage"

committees.parliament.uk/publications/8206/documents/84092/default/

'sending knowingly false communications which intentionally cause non-trivial emotional, psychological, or physical harm, communications which contain threats of serious harm and stirring up hatred on the grounds of sex or gender,

Stonewall have been involved in creating this Bill.

Bump

This is really very chilling. Has anyone alerted the Baroness? I've copied and pasted and will be voicing my concerns to my MP.

Why do they keep making these stupid laws? Yes, criminalising people who issue rape and death threats sounds like a great idea and should be simple to police. But why tag hate crime on to this bill when we have already seen the disaster that has been?

sharing dangerous disinformation to deliberately inflict harm is far too open to interpretation by people who interpret everything that they don’t agree with as ‘literal violence’. It’s just another opportunity for the ridiculous ‘non-crime hate incidents’ which are neither crimes nor hateful to be criminalised.

@Pluvia

This is really very chilling. Has anyone alerted the Baroness? I've copied and pasted and will be voicing my concerns to my MP.

I can't find info on timescales for this. I know it was in the news as Nadine Dorries was talking about it. Not sure when it's to be debated, though.

That’s a good article from Justine upthread.

This is a really clear example of legislative overreach- there’s a lot of really good, helpful stuff in there, but then muddled and worrying vague and threatening bits smuggled in underneath.

This needs watched.

So long as women get to say that it's hateful to say women can have a penis, all should be fine.

Joanna Williams comment in the Times today:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/3394f4e8-878a-11ec-8600-c48a9935f856?shareToken=f1ddc324313fd4b2e844d91f90e59ea9

Dorries has “very extensive” plans for the Online Safety Bill.

'in the UK, the police have taken it upon themselves to act as the nation’s moral guardians and political enforcers. Yet, with new details emerging daily of officers themselves exchanging vile misogynistic and racist messages we may well ask what gives them the right to sit in judgment. It will no doubt strike many women as ironic that, in the guise of protecting us from harm, more power is being handed to some of the people found to discuss us most derogatorily.'

No shit.