By Gabriel Princewill-
The British government has published a Milestone Online Safety Bill will help safeguard young people and clamp down on racist abuse online.
The comprehensive and impressive Bill to be released today, also includes new measures to uphold democratic debate online. The development of debate is undoubtedly useful for the development of society, by enabling legitimate discourse on sometimes complex issues that require thorough examination.
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Society should engage competently in productive debates which can contribute to gaining useful insights on particular issues , thereby achieving overall progress and the enhancement of our outlook on various matters, however uncomfortable they may appear to be.
The bill also addresses financial fraud on social media and dating apps is included to protect people from romance scams and fake investment opportunities.
New internet laws will be published today in the draft Online Safety Bill to protect children online, and tackle some of the worst abuses on social media, including racist hate crimes.
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Ministers have added landmark new measures to the Bill to safeguard freedom of expression and democracy, ensuring necessary online protections do not lead to unnecessary censorship.
The UK government said the draft Bill marks a milestone in the Government’s fight to make the internet safe.
The drastic steps follows concerns that over 75%To Tackle Online of UK adults are concerned about going online, and fewer parents feel the benefits outweigh the risks of their children being online – falling from 65 per cent in 2015 to 55 per cent in 2019.
The draft Bill includes changes to put an end to harmful practices, while ushering in a new era of accountability and protections for democratic debate, including new additions to strengthen people’s rights to express themselves freely online, while protecting journalism and democratic political debate in the UK.
Further provisions are also contained in the bill to tackle prolific online scams such as romance fraud, which has seen people manipulated into sending money to fake identities on dating apps.
Also included are social media sites, websites, apps and other services hosting user-generated content or allowing people to talk to others online must remove and limit the spread of illegal and harmful content such as child sexual abuse, terrorist material and suicide content.
Under the new bill, Ofcom will be given the power to fine companies failing in a new duty of care up to £18 million, or ten per cent of annual global turnover, whichever is higher, and have the power to block access to sites.
A new criminal offence for senior managers has been included as a deferred power. This could be introduced at a later date if tech firms don’t step up their efforts to improve safety.
Digital Secretary Oliver Dowden said:
Today the UK shows global leadership with our groundbreaking laws to usher in a new age of accountability for tech and bring fairness and accountability to the online world.
We will protect children on the internet, crack down on racist abuse on social media and through new measures to safeguard our liberties, create a truly democratic digital age.
Home Secretary Priti Patel said:
”This new legislation will force tech companies to report online child abuse on their platforms, giving our law enforcement agencies the evidence they need to bring these offenders to justice.
Ruthless criminals who defraud millions of people and sick individuals who exploit the most vulnerable in our society cannot be allowed to operate unimpeded, and we are unapologetic in going after them.
It’s time for tech companies to be held to account and to protect the British people from harm. If they fail to do so, they will face penalties.
The draft Bill will be scrutinised by a joint committee of MPs before a final version is formally introduced to Parliament.
The following elements of the Bill aim to create the most progressive, fair and accountable system in the world. This comes only weeks after a boycott of social media by sports professionals and governing bodies in protest at the racist abuse of footballers online, while at the same time concerns continue to be raised at social media platforms arbitrarily removing content and blocking users”.
Duty of care
In line with the government’s response to the Online Harms White Paper, all companies in scope will have a duty of care towards their users so that what is unacceptable offline will also be unacceptable online.
They will need to consider the risks their sites may pose to the youngest and most vulnerable people and act to protect children from inappropriate content and harmful activity.
They will need to take robust action to tackle illegal abuse, including swift and effective action against hate crimes, harassment and threats directed at individuals and keep their promises to users about their standards.
The largest and most popular social media sites (Category 1 services) will need to act on content that is lawful but still harmful such as abuse that falls below the threshold of a criminal offence, encouragement of self-harm and mis/disinformation. Category 1 platforms will need to state explicitly in their terms and conditions how they will address these legal harms and Ofcom will hold them to account.
The draft Bill contains reserved powers for Ofcom to pursue criminal action against named senior managers whose companies do not comply with Ofcom’s requests for information. These will be introduced if tech companies fail to live up to their new responsibilities. A review will take place at least two years after the new regulatory regime is fully operational.
The final legislation, when introduced to Parliament, will contain provisions that require companies to report child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA) content identified on their services. This will ensure companies provide law enforcement with the high-quality information they need to safeguard victims and investigate offenders.
Freedom of expression
The Bill will ensure people in the UK can express themselves freely online and participate in pluralistic and robust debate.
All in-scope companies will need to consider and put in place safeguards for freedom of expression when fulfilling their duties. These safeguards will be set out by Ofcom in codes of practice but, for example, might include having human moderators take decisions in complex cases where context is important.
Embodied in the bill is for the providers of services to facilitate access to effective routes of appeal for content removed without good reason, and for companies must reinstate that content if it has been removed unfairly.
Users will also be able to appeal to Ofcom and these complaints will form an essential part of Ofcom’s horizon-scanning, research and enforcement activity.
Additional duties. for category 1 duties includes the need to conduct and publish up-to-date assessments of their impact on freedom of expression and demonstrate they have taken steps to mitigate any adverse effects.
Underlying the overall mechanism of the bill are measures that eradicate the risk of online companies adopting restrictive measures, or over-removing content in their efforts to meet their new online safety duties.
An example of this could be AI moderation technologies falsely flagging innocuous content as harmful, such as satire.
Democratic content
Ministers have added new and specific duties to the Bill for Category 1 services to protect content defined as ‘democratically important’. This will include content promoting or opposing government policy or a political party ahead of a vote in Parliament, election or referendum, or campaigning on a live political issue.
Under the new laws, companies will also be forbidden from discriminating against particular political viewpoints, and will need to apply protections equally to a range of political opinions, no matter their affiliation.
It would be imperative for the protection of such content to be set out in clear and accessible terms and conditions, with firms obligated to adhere to them or face enforcement action from Ofcom.
Political Context
When moderating content, companies will need to take into account the political context around why the content is being shared and give it a high level of protection if it is democratically important.
The government cited an example of major social media companied which may choose to prohibit all deadly or graphic violence. A campaign group could release violent footage to raise awareness about violence against a specific group.
Given its importance to democratic debate, the company might choose to keep that content up, subject to warnings, but it would need to be upfront about the policy and ensure it is applied consistently.
Journalistic content
Content on news publishers’ websites is not with the scope of the new laws. This includes both their own articles and user comments on these articles.
Articles by recognised news publishers shared on in-scope services will be exempted and Category 1 companies will now have a statutory duty to safeguard UK users’ access to journalistic content shared on their platforms.
Uppermost must be the importance of journalism when undertaking content moderation, including the availability of a fast-track appeals process for journalists’ removed content, and will also be held to account by Ofcom for the arbitrary removal of journalistic content. Citizen journalists’ content will have the same protections as professional journalists’ content.
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