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
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Tag: Graham Smith (Page 1 of 5)
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
It is time – in fact it is overdue – to take stock of the increasingly imminent Online Safety Bill. The two months before and after Christmas saw a burst of activity: Reports from the Joint Parliamentary Committee scrutinising the draft Bill, from the Commons DCMS Committee on the ‘Legal but Harmful’ issue, and from the House of Commons Petitions Committee on Tackling Online Abuse. Continue reading
This is Part 2 of a two part post dealing with a concrete example of the way in which the Online Safety Bill is should operate. Part 1 set out the example and the applicable duties. It was published on 9 November 2021. The concluding Part of the post deals with the implementation of these duties Continue reading
1. The draft Online Safety Bill is nothing if not abstract. Whether it is defining the adult (or child) of ordinary sensibilities, mandating proportionate systems and processes, or balancing safety, privacy, and freedom of speech within the law, the draft Bill resolutely eschews specifics. Continue reading
One of the more intriguing aspects of the draft Online Safety Bill is the government’s insistence that the safety duties under the draft Bill are not about individual items of content, but about having appropriate systems and processes in place; and that this is protective of freedom of expression. Continue reading
One of the more perplexing provisions of the draft Online Safety Bill is its multi-level definition of legal but harmful content (“lawful but awful” content, to give it its colloquial name). Continue reading
Can something that I write in this blog restrict someone else’s freedom of expression? According to the UK government, yes. In its Full Response to the Online Harms White Paper the government suggested that under the proposed legislation user redress mechanisms to be provided by platforms would enable users to “challenge content that unduly restricts their freedom of expression”. Continue reading
When he announced the Online Harms White Paper in April 2019 the then Culture Secretary, Jeremy Wright QC, was at pains to reassure the press that the proposed regulatory regime would not impinge on press freedom. Continue reading
Two years on from the April 2019 Online Harms White Paper, the government has published its draft Online Safety Bill. It is a hefty beast: 133 pages and 141 sections. It raises a slew of questions, not least around press and journalistic material and the newly-coined “content of democratic importance”. Continue reading
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