" Social media giants will be told to focus on rooting out racist abuse and trolling rather than debates on trans rights under a revamped online harms bill to be published tomorrow.
In an attempt to assuage fears that wide-ranging new powers will make Facebook and Twitter censor political discussion, ministers are drawing up a list of “priority” harms that companies will be required to seek out. Measures to ensure journalism by recognised media outlets is not taken down will be added to the bill later, it is understood.
Tomorrow the government will publish its overhauled Online Safety Bill, which will impose a duty on tech giants to have systems for removing harmful content or risk fines of up to 10 per cent of their turnover. The bill has been rewritten after a year of intense debate over whether it strikes the right balance between making the internet safer for children and the vulnerable and protecting free speech.
Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, has acknowledged the “horrifying spectre” raised by some MPs and journalists “that the bill will give people like Mark Zuckerberg and Nick Clegg unlimited power to decide what is and isn’t acceptable to say online”, but she insists this already happens. In an article for the Conservative Home website she wrote that Silicon Valley is able to “decide who gets to speak online, and who is silenced or cancelled from public life”. She claimed that the revamped bill would introduce “considerably stronger protections for free speech”.
In changes to the bill, ministers aim to narrow the scope of “legal but harmful” material, which companies will be held accountable for, by setting a “priority” list of topics. It has yet to be finalised but is expected to include racist abuse and trolling but not areas of contention such as discussions about rights of self-identification for transgender people.
Government sources said: “The big concern is to ensure we don’t get into the world of people saying, ‘I’m psychologically harmed by someone saying something about a live political debate.’” They hope the list will reduce the risk of overzealous tech companies removing political debate under pressure from campaign groups or individuals who claim they have been harmed. Though not expected to remove legal material that is not on the priority list, companies will still be told to report it to Ofcom, and ministers will reserve powers to add emerging harms to the banned list.
Tech companies will be threatened with fines for not taking down material that is already against their own terms and conditions. And they will be required to take down material that appears on a broader list of priority illegal harms, including encouraging suicide, revenge porn and hate crime.
Some campaigners fear the bill will give too much power to politicians and result in a “Whac-a-Mole” approach to taking down harmful material, rather than addressing how social media makes money from outrage. Alaphia Zoyab, of the internet reform campaign group Reset, said: “Rather than trying to ban or delete every piece of potentially harmful content, the bill must protect free speech by tackling Big Tech platforms’ business models that rely on amplifying sensational and extreme content to large numbers of people.”
Dorries promised “extra protections” for journalists, citing YouTube’s decision last year to ban TalkRadio briefly over an unspecified violation of its rules. TalkRadio is ultimately owned by News UK, which also owns The Times. They are not included in the draft bill, but Dorries said yesterday: “I have every intention of further improving the requirements for platforms not to remove content from recognised media outlets during the passage of the bill.”
The bill does give people the right to appeal if posts about “important democratic content” are taken down. Dorries said companies would have to justify the removal of posts quickly or put them back up and that, as things stood, people who complained were “faced with obstruction and opacity”. "
I just caught another 30 day Fb ban for saying things that are true. I get banned within a week of being back every time. I have zero faith they’ll remedy this. Meanwhile the TRAs say some of the most vile stuff and are never against their supposed “community standards.”
They talk about censorship of speech but still allow porn to flash on the screen with the wrong Google search
I don’t believe they will protect our right to protest, or to say men aren’t women
What is trolling? How the politicians decide what is trolling? Can anyone we dislike be accused of trolling and therefore get removed?
Who guarantees that gender ideology won't end up on that "priority list" and therefore forbid everyone from pointing out its harm?
So, only allowed media outlets then? Ok.
The holy grails that none of those politicians live up to.
That's true.
We'll see.
I'm not
americanbritish, so I'm ignorant on this, but isn't racism or racial insult already a crime? At least where I live this is already illegal. Maybe they should change that, if it isn't illegal already, instead of relying on big tech to do so.So, woke ministers will eventually add the TRA rhetoric to that list and we will end up on a much worse situation than now. Ok, got it.
Can they remove things from that list? It would be hilarious to see topics being added by conservative politicians, removed by woke politicians and vice versa.
Interesting idea, then big tech just lobby this idea out and that's it.
The cursed word.
What is "important democratic content"? Who decides what is "important democratic content"? Who guarantees that when that happens and people (who?) appeal, a politician from the opposite side won't simply sit on the appeal until it is forgotten?
I'm sorry for the dismembering of the article, but I'm very sceptical of governments, especially when it involves big tech.
Edit: I thought it was on the USA. xD