The UK’s Online Safety Bill for a ‘safer internet’ has passed its final parliamentary debate and will become law soon, which means we could very gradually see the internet landscape change forever.
As per Sky News, social media platforms that do not comply with the new rules could face fines of up to 10% of their global annual revenue, so I’m guessing Zuckerberg, Musk and the rest will be keen to follow the guidelines as closely as possible.
What does it actually mean though? Well, the idea is that social media companies will be put under more pressure to protect people from illegal and harmful content, such as abusive messages, bullying and pornography. The problem is – who gets to decide what content is harmful? Who gets to decide what constitutes bullying and what constitutes banter? Is the idea to trust some intern at Facebook or Twitter X to tell the difference?
The idea of this Online Safety Bill was first put forth in 2019, but there were delays and controversies over issues such as freedom of speech and privacy. Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan said:
“The Online Safety Bill is a game-changing piece of legislation. Today, this government is taking an enormous step forward in our mission to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online.”
The bill will require social media companies to remove illegal and harmful content quickly or prevent it from appearing in the first place. Aside from abuse, bullying and pornography, the government says it wants to crack down on content promoting self-harm, sales of drugs and weapons, inciting and planning terrorism, sexual exploitation, hate speech, scams, cyber-flashing, and revenge porn. Pretty much all things that are illegal and get taken down already.
Ofcom will be largely responsible for enforcing the bill, so they’ll be kept busy now even when people aren’t ringing up to moan about what someone did on Love Island or said on Loose Women.
Reaction online doesn’t seem very favourable, with people convinced that this is just another step towards having our internet history snooped on, freedom of speech restricted, pages locked off, etc. The Bill has been approved though which means there’s nothing anyone can do about it now but hope that there’s nothing more sinister at play. In a world where there is, I imagine some tech nerd freedom fighter will quickly start up an internet 2.0, so that’s good. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, though.
P.S. Will we still be able to post Megan Thee Stallion twerk videos? I hope so.
