The International Forum for Responsible Media Blog
The UK government has recently revealed more detail about its ambitious plans to become the “safest place in the world to go online” by way of the online safety bill. The draft bill is currently being reviewed by the government following a report by the joint committee, with the bill expected to go before parliament in the coming months. 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
The past fortnight has seen the release of the Facebook Files – the result of a Wall Street Journal investigation into claims by Facebook employees about company practices that prioritise profit over societal good, the US over other societies, and subscriptions over preventing harm. Continue reading
This post is the second part of two posts on the draft Online Safety Bill. The first post, found here, detailed the mechanics of the proposed bill in detail. This post will summarise some of the civil society responses since the publication of the draft bill, attempting an evaluation of how reasonable those responses are in light of the available information. Continue reading
The dust has settled since the government released its draft Online Safety Bill. Now is therefore a good time to evaluate its aims, methods, and potential impacts, which we will do so in this two-part post. 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
The press lobbying described in Part 2 continued . Dire warnings about the effects of the measures proposed in the White Paper have continued to appear in papers such as the Mail. Continue reading
A draft of the White Paper was leaked to the Mail on Sunday, 24 March 2019, which noted specifically that “the new rules will target any site that allows users to share or discover user-generated content or interact with each other online” and argued that this would mean that newspaper websites would be forced to sign up to the regulator. Continue reading
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