The Case Against The Online Safety Bill

Author - Edward Howard

‘I worry that at a time when Conservatives should be promoting freedom of speech, we have created

a weapon for our opponents to say we oppose freedom of speech – and we shouldn’t be doing that.’

- Richard Fuller MP, 2022

During the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian conflict, one reason that many of the Western nations have

proposed that we are better than the likes of Vladimir Putin is that we support freedom and

democracy, as exemplified by our ally Ukraine in that region.

It’s not hard to see why – there is no doubt now that Putin is a sinister tyrant, whose country locks

ups and attacks journalists, targets dissidents in other countries and has done little to reduce the

Mafia-like rule in his country, as he directly benefits from that. Such an authoritarian tendency led

him to attack Ukraine, as he is so righteous in his desire to have that country back under his orbit,

that invading it seems to be the right thing to do, sanctions and the effects on the Russian people be

damned. While it’s debatable how truly free and democratic a country like Ukraine is, there is no

doubt that it is the victim of an authoritarian regime flexing its muscles when it seems fit.

Despite this, can we stand on such a moral high ground ourselves? During the Cold War against the

tyrannical Soviet Union, we could given that Western nations were mostly free and were led by wise

people who appreciated such gifts, especially in contrast to the enemy that we were facing. Any

attempts to undermine that, as conservative commentator Peter Hitchens has noted, would weaken

any standing that we had. In short, it was a matter of I know you are, but what am I?

Now, such a case seems far weaker. In Australia, internment camps were set up for the unvaccinated

while Senators were targeted for harassment. In Canada, peaceful trucker protests had their bank

accounts frozen and were denied bail among other things, all the while its Prime Minister Justin

Trudeau briefly invoked the Emergencies Act to combat them (although this was swiftly dropped

once he found out it wouldn’t pass the Senate there). And of course, in Britain, we have had a

government of which cranked up the authoritarian levels quite a bit in the last few years. Such

moves have often been well-meaning – but as the old adage goes, the road to hell is paved with

good intentions.

Which brings us nicely to the proposed Online Safety Bill, of which while not law yet, has certain

ramifications that should deeply trouble anyone concerned with maintaining a free society.

Probably the most troubling aspect of the bill is that it will inevitably through government regulation

lead to more censorship on the internet. The notions of cracking down on ‘legal but harmful’ speech

and content that has an alleged ‘adverse… psychological impact on individuals’ are very Orwellian

ones, and could have serious ramifications down the line depending on which party is in power,

given the loose and vague definition that such a term brings. No doubt incidents such as Twitter user

Douglas Mackey being arrested for pro-Trump tweets, and left-wing anti-war critics also targeted for

criticising the likes of Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocazio-Cortez will be replicated in

Britain. There will be probably be an instance of someone being arrested for ‘hate speech’ for

making a Diane Abbott maths joke, for example.

And this isn’t simply a hypothetical concern either. Through precedent, there are clear indications

that this law will be used in the worst ways to attack opposition to the establishment, whatever that

may be.

The fact that the regulatory body Ofcom is the final arbiter in this case, as proposed in the

legislation, is key to this. Its definition of ‘hate speech’ is so broad and loose that it will be abused

and taken advantage of to attack politically incorrect speech. Such a stance is also noted by its self-

justifying research, which advocated censorship on such a front, due to the supposed amount of

hate-filled content online, despite it not being clearly defined in their report.

On top of this, recent rulings by them indicate this too; it attacked TalkRadio broadcaster James

Whale for not appreciating someone’s ‘lived experience’ in 2019, and its chief executive Melanie

Dawes criticised networks giving airtime to alleged ‘anti-trans pressure groups’ (something that

Ofcom later added into their definition of hate speech in 2021). If such a censorial, politically

motivated body is in charge of internet censorship, this could lead to much necessary debate and

dialogue being clamped down on, of which is not only already a huge problem with Big Tech as it is,

but would make such already powerful platforms wings of government, of which seems rather

troubling.

In conjunction with this, several statements by government ministers have indicated that this will be

used to censor not simply abusive trolls of MPs (of which these social media networks already have

mechanisms in place to block and report such people anyway), but politically incorrect types and

government critics too.

For the former, Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries (one of the proponents of the bill) has advocated

that comedian Jimmy Carr should be punished by the law due to very tasteless jokes that he made in

a Netflix special a while ago (this coming from the same woman who rightly noted that left-wing

‘snowflakes’ were killing comedy – who says irony is dead?). Such jokes clearly were obscene, but

were expected of an edgelord comedian like Carr, who made his career off such humour. If the

government criminalises jokes, are we no better than the fascist regimes of the past whereby

George Orwell noted that no-one could laugh at anything that undermined the state, such as that of

the goosestep that its militaries practised? Not to mention that it fitted in nicely with Scottish

National Party politicians (who have already brought in an anti-free speech bill of their own), who

called for those who laughed at Carr to be prosecuted.

There are other issues on this too. Dorries has stated that ‘harmful misinformation’ could become a

criminal offence under the law – another vaguely defined term which has already been abused.

Most notably, once noting the lab leak theory in Wuhan was deemed such a thing in relation to

coronavirus – now it is the conclusion of the UK government, among many others. Such a mindset

also saw the aforementioned TalkRadio yanked off YouTube briefly as well, of which undermined

freedom of the press.

Home Secretary Priti Patel meanwhile has stated that such a bill would tackle supposed

‘glamorisation’ of migrant coverage online on platforms like TikTok to deter crossings and things like

that. The only problem is that it seems highly likely that it will instead be used to silence critics of the

current handling of the illegal migration crisis we currently have on the English Channel. After all,

such a problem didn’t become such a big news story and an agenda item until the likes of Nigel

Farage gave it airtime, with others like freelance journalist Steve Laws picking up the mantel in other

areas – unsurprisingly, both were harassed by the police for their troubles. This seems far more likely

to quash further reporting on the issue, as it makes certain people look bad for handling this in a

really unorganised way.

Finally, after the killing of Sir David Amess MP, some Parliamentarians advocated using it to scrap

online anonymity to tackle abuse of MPs online to make sure that Amess didn’t ‘die in vain’ (the fact

that he was likely killed by a radical Islamist doesn’t seem to have moved anyone to do anything to

tackle that once again). So because a tragic event like that happened, the right to privacy has to be

undermined due to something completely unrelated to the event itself. Makes sense.

The fact that online anonymity could be scrapped alongside private messaging being regulated

under the act is also deeply concerning – a basic common law right of privacy undermined to

supposedly stop MP abuse online. All the while this no doubt lead to critics of government policy

being named and shamed by much of the press if such criticism defies an agenda much of the

establishment agrees on – in other words, cancel culture with government backing. And of course,

any concerns about it stopping terrorist activity is profoundly untrue – the availability of Virtual

Private Networks undermines that completely; if even old serial killers can allegedly use them,

certainly trained terrorists can.

There are good things in the law to be sure. The requirement for ID for online porn sites is a nice

change, and can thankfully limit such a legitimately harmful industry, not to mention keeping it out

of the hands of children and teenagers, of who are often exposed to such vileness. And the fact that

the law has had to be watered down due to criticism is a positive step in the right direction.

That being said, these moves don’t go far enough. Quite frankly, the only sensible steps here would

be to start the law over, and only target legitimate threats online, as opposed to the censorial mess

it now occupies.

What is speaks to meanwhile is a deeper problem with much of the Tory establishment here. It

claims to oppose cancel culture and protect free speech – yet has done everything to highlight the

opposite of that, from this, to attacking critical MPs in its own ranks, to its dangerously draconian

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, of who no doubt would do much to undermine the right to

protest of the left and right. Hence we come to the quote by Richard Fuller from the beginning – we

shouldn’t be creating weapons to silence free speech at a time when we need it more than ever, and

support it, at least in theory.

If this government did want to truly defend free speech, it’s going to require much more than

criticising ‘woke leftie snowflakes’ on Twitter and gesture legislation tackling the closing of the mind

at British universities.

No, it requires something far more expansive. Such an agenda would; repeal the likes of Section 127

of the Communications Act 2003 (which has had comedians fined and teenage girls convicted for

‘offensive’ tribute posts), make political association a protected characteristic in law (especially

related to employment and unfair dismissal) akin to Northern Ireland, revoke the bans of

conservative journalists and commentators it has unfairly targeted, fine companies who fire people

for politically incorrect social media posts and criminalise actions of financial institutions which

refuse service on political grounds (provided that the latter two doesn’t involve proscribed groups or

legitimate criminals). It should also enshrine freedom of speech in law by codifying the unwritten

constitutions of the Magna Carta and the 1689 English Bill Of Rights (similar to what Canada did in

1982 when it declared its full independence from Britain), all the while adding free speech as an

extra right on top of that.

Because if we really mean what we say when it comes to freedom of speech and democracy in

rhetoric surrounding Ukraine, we must mean it at home to. And a good step towards that would be

to scrap the Online Safety Bill.