The traditional press has two roles, one as a check on public figures, and another as a form of entertainment. Increasingly, as Franklin argues: Continue reading
The International Forum for Responsible Media Blog
Category: Internet (Page 1 of 19)
Despite the concerns raised and criticism surrounding the acquisition of social media platform Twitter by the billionaire Elon Musk, on April 26 Twitter’s board agreed to a $44bn takeover, sending shockwaves across the Internet. The deal is currently ‘temporarily on hold’ as Musk announced (via Twitter) on May 13 pending clarification of the true number of spam accounts on the platform, but Musk insists he is committed to the purchase. Continue reading
On 28 April 2022, with little advance notice, an announcement was released by various governments informing the world that they had just signed a “Declaration for the Future of the Internet”. In all, sixty-one countries signed this grandiose-sounding document, ranging from Albania to Uruguay. Signatories notably included the US, which was the sponsor of the Declaration, the 27 countries of the EU, the UK, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and four of the five Nordic countries. Continue reading
On 17 March 2022, the Government finally published the Online Safety Bill, which will now make its way through Parliament – with the expectation that it will ultimately become law. Continue reading
The Online Safety Bill [pdf] (OSB) is a gorilla of a thing, comprising 213 pages, plus explanatory notes, impact assessment and human rights statement. It will take a while for people to understand how the regime introduced by the OSB is likely to work. Continue reading
Have you ever felt a creeping sensation that someone’s watching you? Then you turn around and you don’t see anything out of the ordinary. Depending on where you were, though, you might not have been completely imagining it. There are billions of things sensing you every day. They are everywhere, hidden in plain sight – inside your TV, fridge, car and office. These things know more about you than you might imagine, and many of them communicate that information over the internet. Continue reading
When it comes to online safety—or its flip side, online harms—many countries are grappling with the problem. What is the role of government in establishing guidelines and regulations for the protection of citizens, particularly vulnerable segments of the population, from a range of harms perpetrated by anti-social and even criminal elements via the internet? What is the role of “internet intermediaries”, the internet distribution and social media platforms that the perpetrators use to attack their victims? Continue reading
Strand 4 involves the creation of new and reformed criminal offences that would apply directly to users, in parallel with the government’s proposals for an online duty of care, the Law Commission has been conducting two projects looking at the criminal law as it affects online and other communications: Modernising Communications Offences (Law Com No 399, 21 July 2021); Hate Crime Laws (LawCom No 402, 7 December 2021). Continue reading
The most heavily debated aspect of the government’s proposals has been, Strand 2, the ‘legal but harmful content’ duty. In the draft Bill this comes in two versions: a substantive duty to mitigate user content harmful to children; and a transparency duty in relation to user content harmful to adults. That, at any rate, appears to be the government’s political intention. As drafted, the Bill could be read as going further and imposing a substantive ‘content harmful to adults’ duty (something that at least some of the Committees want the legislation explicitly to do). Continue reading
In recent months the Australian government has proposed cracking down on online anonymity. The idea is that attaching online posts to a person’s real name will reduce abuse and increase accountability. Online bullying and misinformation are growing problems, and government action to address them is overdue. Continue reading
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