Before the publication of the Online Harms White Paper on 8 April 2019 I proposed a Ten Point Rule of Law test to which it might usefully be subjected. Continue reading
The International Forum for Responsible Media Blog
Tag: Graham Smith (Page 3 of 5)
On 8 April 2019, having spent the best part of a day reading the UK government’s Online Harms White Paper, I concluded that if the road to hell was paved with good intentions, this was a motorway. After full and further consideration, I have found nothing to alter that view. This is why. Continue reading
All the signs are that the government will shortly propose a duty of care on social media platforms aimed at reducing the risk of harm to users. DCMS Secretary of State Jeremy Wright wrote recently: Continue reading
A bumper crop of pending litigation and legislative initiatives for the coming year (without even thinking about Brexit). Continue reading
Should social media platforms be subject to a statutory duty of care, akin to occupiers’ liability or health and safety, with the aim of protecting against online harms? In a series of blogposts and evidence to the House of Lords Communications Committee William Perrin and Professor Lorna Woods suggest that the answer should be yes. Continue reading
This summer marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Theatres Act 1968, the legislation that freed the theatres from the censorious hand of the Lord Chamberlain of Her Majesty’s Household. Thereafter theatres needed to concern themselves only with the general laws governing speech. In addition they were granted a public good defence to obscenity and immunity from common law offences against public morality. Continue reading
Yesterday I was transported back in time, to that surreal period following the Snowden revelations in 2013 when anyone who knew anything about the previously obscure RIPA (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000) was in demand to explain how it was that GCHQ was empowered to conduct bulk interception on a previously unimagined scale. Continue reading
Nearly twenty five years after the advent of the Web, and longer since the birth of the internet, we still hear demands that the internet should be regulated – for all the world as if people who use the internet were not already subject to the law. Continue reading
Right now the ECommerce Directive – or at any rate the parts that shield hosting intermediaries from liability for users’ content – is under siege. The guns are blazing from all directions. Continue reading
A preview of some of the UK internet legal developments that we can expect in 2018. Any future EU legislation will be subject to Brexit considerations and may or may not apply in the UK. Continue reading
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