The Online Safety Bill will prove to be unworkable
The Online Safety Bill, bounced between an ever-changing cast of ministers and accreting measures as it goes like burrs sticking to a shaggy dog, will prove to be unworkable (again). Teenagers wishing to eat of the forbidden fruit will always find a way to circumvent the rules, most obviously by using a simple VPN, and the billionaire bogeymen of Silicon Valley will prove immune to prosecution. Rather, examples will be made of smaller publishers and tech companies in the UK, whose executives may find well themselves in court for inadvertently allowing illegal self-published content on their sites.
Originally drafted by Theresa May's government, three PMs down the road it is a hotch-potch of barely thought through ideas that, in combination, please no-one and raise concerns over privacy and free speech. The controversial ‘legal but harmful' provision has been downgraded by the latest incumbent head of the DCMS, Michelle Donelan, who now wants Ofcom to police the Ts & Cs of platforms hosting such non-illegal content and judge whether standards are being upheld. Terms and conditions are constantly changing and unless Ofcom is to be massively beefed this seems like an impossible job.
To compensate for the climbdown, the Government has introduced bans on promoting self-harm, as campaigned for by the family of Molly Russell, and chucked in deepfake porn and ‘downblousing' for good measure. And on it goes.
It is to be sincerely hoped that what emerges will go some way to protecting children from the worst materials on the internet, no-one is denying the need for that, but this ragbag of rules will please no-one. Some aspects, such as plans to weaken end-to-end encryption, are downright dangerous and already being resisted by the likes of WhatsApp; others will prove unenforceable, and in all likelihood most of it will be quietly abandoned at some later stage - but not before a few tech company execs who can't afford the expensive lawyers have been fined or imprisoned. For now, it's becoming a bidding war between the two main parties as to who can be the toughest on ‘big tech', with Labour even suggesting a crackdown on VPNs.
That won't happen, and nor will Big Tech be too bothered. That said, if the measures can align with those being introduced by Europe all of that might change.
