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The final draft of the UK government’s long-awaited legislation designed to protect people from “harmful” content on the internet is today being presented to Parliament.
The Online Safety Bill puts the onus squarely on technology companies to spot anything deemed harmful – but not necessarily illegal – and remove it, or face stiff consequences. Critics say it is well-intentioned, but vague, legislation that is likely to have negative unintended consequences.
Nadine Dorries, the UK’s secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport, said in a statement that tech firms “haven’t been held to account when harm, abuse and criminal behaviour have run riot on their platforms”. But it remains unclear how government will decide what is, and what is not, “harmful” and how technology companies will moderate content according to those decisions.
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