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UK To Require Social Media To Protect 'Democratically Important' Content (theguardian.com) 53

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Long-awaited proposals in the UK to regulate social media are a "recipe for censorship," campaigners have said, which fly in the face of the government's attempts to strengthen free speech elsewhere in Britain. From a report: The online safety bill, which was introduced to parliament on Wednesday, hands Ofcom the power to punish social networks which fail to remove "lawful but harmful" content. The proposals were welcomed by children's safety campaigns, but theyhave come under fire from civil liberties organisations. "Applying a health and safety approach to everybody's online speech combined with the threat of massive fines against the platforms is a recipe for censorship and removal of legal content," said Jim Killock, the director of the Open Rights Group. "Facebook does not operate prisons and is not the police. Trying to make platforms do the job of law enforcement through technical means is a recipe for failure."

The centre-right CPS thinktank was similarly critical. "It is for parliament to determine what is sufficiently harmful that it should not be allowed, not for Ofcom or individual platforms to guess," it said. "If something is legal to say, it should be legal to type," CPS's director, Robert Colvile, added. In its update to the bill from the white paper first drafted by Theresa May's government in 2019, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport added sections intended to prevent harm to free expression. Social networks will now need to perform and publish "assessments of their impact on freedom of expression."
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UK To Require Social Media To Protect 'Democratically Important' Content More

UK To Require Social Media To Protect 'Democratically Important' Content

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  • Save the children and the whales (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @02:31PM (#61377678) Journal

    The proposals were welcomed by children's safety campaigns

    "Think of the children!:" A common yellow flag for excuses to take away freedom and privacy.

    • Yeah. I remember how they "though of the children" back in the 80's. Thought of them in such a way as to beggar their children. Instead of their neighbor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by jwymanm ( 627857 )
      "Disinformation" or "hateful content" or "violates our content policy/agreement" - when they can't even explain how it does are also others. They are throwing everything and seeing what sticks to remove content and content creators.

  • Welcome to Dictatorship (Score:3, Interesting)

    by lsllll ( 830002 ) on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @02:38PM (#61377694)
    First you control what they hear, then you control what they can say, then you make changes slowly enough that they won't notice, of if they do, it'll be a few who can't get vocal about it, and before you know it, you've changed enough things that you're no longer a democracy or a republic.
    • try adverting beet juice as a cure for cancer on national TV (not just to your 3 FB friends) and see what happens.

      I don't see anything wrong with applying existing advertising standards to misinformation and outright lies spread online. Especially stuff like anti-vaxx or lying about election dates. We have a legal process for catching and punishing false advertising, let's use it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lsllll ( 830002 )

        You're kidding, right? Firstly, advertisers do make false claims all the time, but they do it subtly and legally, so that you can't go after them. After all, there wouldn't be a market for penis extenders (not that I've tried them!) or get rich seminars.

        Secondly, you're conflating business with personal. As a person, everything I write on social media, outside of libel and defamation, falls outside of truth-in-advertising. I'm not selling anything to anybody. I'm just arguing with you that vaccinations

        • Kinda like how hitmen kill subtly? You notice the ones that fun right up against the law because they can continue to operate.

          You're essentially saying we don't need laws because you haven't noticed any crime. But we passed those laws for a reason, and it's fair to say is we repealed them the behavior they block would become more common if not ubiquitous. Just like his FB is full of anti vaxx...
          • Educate people and there is no need to ban what is otherwise lawful speech. It really is that simple. Besides, last I checked, Hidden Services with completely illegal content still operate unimpeded... so we all know what will end up happening if we drive cults underground...
            • false advertising is not nor has it ever been lawful speech. You can only educate people so much. No one has the resources and time to verify every claim. We have experts do that via peer review and we require claims in advertising to be substantiated if they have a material impact (e.g. you can say "The best chicken in the world!" but not "Any other chicken will kill you!").

              I'm not worried about hidden services because nobody's seeing them, they're hidden. I'm worried about widespread misinformation th
            • I'm pretty sure if I posted your name, address, social security #, bank account # and passwords you'd take issue with my free speech rights in that regard.

              That's an extreme example, but it illustrates my point: we're not arguing if speech can or should be restricted, we're arguing over *which* speech should be restricted.

              And I keep coming back to this: outright lies that do real harm can and should be restricted, with our legal system making the call in the same way we do with false advertising clai

        • Cancer cures seem to be the only situation in which the UK government cares about false advertising.
          Occasionally the AFA will call out a company for blatantly lying in an advert, but their usual response is to just say 'don't show that advert again.' And I see plenty of medical quackery advertised other than cancer cures.

      • try adverting beet juice as a cure for cancer on national TV (not just to your 3 FB friends) and see what happens.

        But if you just advertise it to your three Facebook friends, you can spread it as an unregulated online meme, contaminating for more minds than you ever could with a TV commercial.

      • ...have been an "outright lie" twenty years ago. If shitlibs weren't full of crap on censorship, they'd be demanding every news source from Fox to NPR be banned for lying the United States into war. Then banned again for hyping propaganda on Syria, Ukraine, Iran, China, Venezuela, and most of all Russiagate.

    • then you control what they can say

      By threats against their livelihoods.

      • Give me a major a publishing house book contract, or give me death!

        Or were you talking about Liz Cheney losing her chair and getting primaried?

  • O RLY? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by GameboyRMH ( 1153867 ) <gameboyrmh&gmail,com> on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @02:42PM (#61377704) Journal

    Hey everyone, the election is actually on $NOT_ELECTION DATE! Did you know you can save time by voting through $FAKE_VOTING METHOD? Aren't you outraged that $WILDLY_UNPOPULAR_CANDIDATE who never won the popular vote lost re-election by a number closely reflected by public polls, thus clearly indicating that the election was STOLEN!?

    In the past there weren't enough terrible shitbirds wishing to destroy democracy that such messages could get any traction or exist in any meaningful volume, but there are now. Allow this disinformation to spread and you'll see what a real free speech problem is after the country goes the way of Hungary.

    • Aren't you outraged that $WILDLY_UNPOPULAR_CANDIDATE who never won the popular vote lost re-election by a number closely reflected by public polls, thus clearly indicating that the election was STOLEN!?

      Given how far the polls were off the previous time $WILDLY_UNPOPULAR_CANDIDATE ran, I'd consider "lost re-election by a number closely reflected by public polls" to be a strong indication that the election WAS suspect. B-b

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 )

        National polling was actually fairly accurate both times but as we have learned even before 2016 national polling really amounts to jack shit in the Electoral College.

        In any case divergence from polls is tenuous evidence at best for anything or not really evidence at all.

    • If anyone is stupid enough to fall for that, well, then...

      • Yeah society has already fucked up terribly to allow this to be a real problem (basically through adherence to a "marketplace of ideas" philosophy writing checks that education and mental health care systems couldn't cash), now we have to mitigate the damage.

  • On the other hand, the BBC is state-run media and it does a better job of informing the public than most American networks.

    Unfortunately, in America, our conservative party does not feel bound to count lawful votes they disagree with, and they censor elected representatives for telling the objective truth about this failing. This makes self-correction impossible within the party--so just imagine what would happen if they had this level of control over social media!

    I hope it works out in England, but if Ame

    • Re:You hate to see it (Score:4, Interesting)

      by andrewbaldwin ( 442273 ) on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @04:22PM (#61378086)

      I agree with much of what you say, but on a point of fact: the BBC is state funded media but not state run [the sheer number of complaints from all sides of those in power/in opposition illustrates that]. It is appreciated by most of us - just not the tabloid media who'd see Ghengis Khan as a bit of a "leftie" and hate anything that doesn't agree with their agenda.

      Please also don't conflate the current bunch of incompetents with the UK public at large. At virtually every election since 1945, the winning party has had less than 50% of the vote (often much less), due to the first past the post system and constituency boundary manipulations [again both main parties are guilty of this]. Brexit only had around 30% support (the non-voters and disenfranchised were the biggest proportion).

      Just as not all Americans are overweight, geographically ignorant, gun toting rednecks, neither are all British stuck-up, arrogant wannabe fascists with bad teeth. Caricatures are just that - exaggerations for effect.

      Sadly, however, a combination of powerful business interests, a strong right wing press, and a population tired of politics,Brexit, Covid... results in proposals like this being put forward in the first place.

      The only saving grace is that UK Government ineptitude, and the goldfish like attention span of the current bunch of ministers mean that little of substance is likely to happen. That and the general systemic inertia will mitigate any slippery slope based predictions of doom and gloom.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Uberbah ( 647458 )

        but on a point of fact: the BBC is state funded media but not state run

        Distinction without a difference. Any third world dictator would love to have his own BBC, just as Chomsky says of American media.

        the sheer number of complaints from all sides of those in power/in opposition illustrates that

        And I have some oceanfront property to sell in Kansas. BBC has been all in on trashing Corbyn, Russiagate, false flag attacks in Syria, anti-China propaganda - they're as bad as Fox or MSDNC.

        Brexit only had around 30

    • ...and they censor elected representatives for telling the objective truth about this failing. This makes self-correction impossible within the party...

      Are you referring to earlier today when nearly all the Republicans in the House said, "We don't want to be correct! WE WANT A PONY!"?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      > On the other hand, the BBC is state-run media and it does a better job of informing the public than most American networks.

      The BBC now has a Chief Executive that's a member of the Conservative party, a Chairman that's a member of the Conservative party, and increasing numbers of Conservative party members taking up board positions.

      I'm not saying I'm a fan of Labour right now, because I agree they have problems, but not many people seem to have clued in to the fact that maybe the reason they don't know

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Uberbah ( 647458 )

      On the other hand, the BBC is state-run media and it does a better job of informing the public than most American networks.

      Come again? Most BBC news is indistinguishable from CIA press releases, same as American media.

  • But, this is UK, with no real free speech laws on the books... Guess we gotta roll with it until we can develop robust communications

  • Boris and his goons not only don't know how trade works they also don't know how the internet works.
    This will be fun.

    • Have to confess as an American, I feel badly for you guys having to go thru this shite sometimes... not that its any better over here, we have our own versions of public insanity.

  • WTF (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Martin S. ( 98249 ) on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @04:07PM (#61378042) Journal

    WTF is democratically important content?

    Could it be the big lie propaganda [wikipedia.org] of the sort use to convince useful idiots to vote for brexit [bbc.co.uk]?

    https://publications.parliamen... [parliament.uk]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jonwil ( 467024 )

      Didn't the UK government use similar propaganda in the referendum on Scottish independence? (aimed at getting people to vote no to leaving the union)

    • the conservatives want to mandate that other people are forced to carry conservative lies.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Uberbah ( 647458 )

      Could it be the big lie propaganda of the sort use to convince useful idiots to vote for brexit?

      Is that sarcasm? Because it's not like Remainers didn't lie, early and often, and twice more on days ending in Y.

      • What did Remainers lie about? Everything about why brexit is a bad idea has basically come true.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Uberbah ( 647458 )

          You misspelled "nothing". The country has been just fine and its economy hasn't been destroyed. It was and still is gross that Remainers smeared Brexit supporters as being racist, when racist wars supported to the hilt by Remainers caused Europe's refugee crisis in the first place.

          • All the exporters and fishermen and Kent complaining about the border restrictions and fishing waters will differ with you there.

            when racist wars supported to the hilt by Remainers

            You have absolutely no evidence that support for the war was split along Brexit lines, particular since Brexit happened a long time after. Just like Brexit, there was broad support for the war across the political spectrum, so Brexiteers were also pretty much in favour of the war. Boris Johnson himself, the biggest anti-EU agitator in the UK, supported the Iraq war.

            So you just

  • I see the five eyes are up to their usual shit. "Special" relationship and all.

  • 'Platforms' have long been declared to private entities with the right to moderate as they see fit.

    Regardless of the legal reality of this position - as well as the argument that only Governments can censor - I have grown increasingly concerned that we have sleepwalked into a world where a person can be 'cancelled' or 'deplatformed' if they engage in wrongspeak.

    My perception - which may or may not be grounded in reality - is that much of the deplatforming takes place with the support of one side of society

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