Online Safety Bill kicked down the road
The Online Safety Bill, due for the next round of parliamentary debate next week, has been shelved until September although possibly for much longer. The reason cited for this delay is lack of parliamentary time. The real cause is more complex.
The controversial Online Safety Bill, born of the perceived necessities of checking the untrammelled power of tech giants and protecting young internet users from harmful content, has been paused due to a shortage of parliamentary time.
The final stages of the bill were due for debate in the Commons next week but have now been shunted to September when the new Prime Minister will be installed in Downing Street with a newly appointed cabinet. The future of Nadine Dorries, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and champion of the Online Safety Bill is uncertain, and the extent to which the bill will remain a priority for the incoming administration is anyone's guess.
A bill with many critics
The Online Safety Bill has been controversial from the outset, and despite multiple redrafts, managed to please almost nobody. Speaking last month, Alex Davies-Jones, Shadow Minister for Tech, Gambling, and the Digital Economy commented:
"The Government have failed to prioritise safety online. They could have forced big tech companies to have systems in place to keep us all safe. Yet the reality is, Ministers are more interested in buying off Conservative backbenchers, than building consensus and listening to the experts to bring in a workable Bill that delivers for children and communities."
Critics such as Alice Hendy, of R;pple Suicide Prevention objected to the bill on the grounds that it didn't go far enough.
"It is very much focused on the tech giants, but there are thousands of platforms encouraging self-harm, suicide and suicide adulation that have never really been in scope. It also focuses on the under eighteens, and whilst there does need to be that focus on children and young adults, it also needs to include the over eighteens in its scope. Mental health issues affect everyone, and young males are at particular risk."
In addition to failing in its core mission to protect internet users (Dorries stated that it would make "the UK the safest place in the world for our children to go online,") the bill was also criticised for the potentially chilling effect on both freedom of speech and the privacy of internet users.
Much of the concern about freedom of speech came from the right of the political spectrum and typically focused on the definitions of legal but harmful content. A legal obligation for platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to define harmful content within parameters set by the Secretary of State for DCMS and Ofcom could have resulted in platforms clamping down hard on content monitoring and removing content to protect themselves from large fines. Safeguards in the bill to protect freedom of expression were considered inadequate by critics.
The regulatory requirements placed on tech businesses would have come at a heavy cost to smaller organisations, which lack the resources to invest in automating compliance and content systems. In addition to hampering the innovation and productivity of smaller tech business, the bill had the potential to end up entrenching and even increasing the power of the tech giants it set out to regulate.
Privacy concerns
In addition to the impact on freedom of expression, there were also serious concerns expressed about the privacy of users due to the requirements for identity verification and the monitoring of activity using technologies mandated by Ofcom - or any other future regulator. The inclusion of private messaging within the scope of the bill also raised questions about encryption. Fundamentally, the bill was at odds with the fact that privacy is binary. Somebody either has complete privacy or none.
Whether the Online Safety Bill returns, when it returns and the form it returns in, depends heavily on who wins the Conservative party leadership. One contender, Kemi Badenoch tweeted yesterday that that "the bill is no fit state to become law." However, Damian Collins MP, Minister for Tech and the Digital Economy tweeted earlier today that Penny Mordaunt, who is the current favourite of the Conservative Party membership, confirmed to him that the bill would continue.
Whilst the Online Safety Bill has few defenders, most in the industry still concede that the impact of online harms remain all too real. Heather Burns, Head of Policy and Governance at MaidSafe, Digital Policy Consultant and digital privacy advocate in her spare time commented recently:
"Even the Online Safety Bill's staunchest defenders are waking up to the fact that the tech sector - whether that's small start-ups like ours or the largest global social network - is not a substitute for a healthy social safety net. Nor should companies like ours be tasked with the roles of privatised speech police, monitors of civility, and guardians of the public order, under the threat of financial penalties and even criminal charges for our staff. Something must be done about online harms, no doubt, but the Online Safety Bill isn't it."