The Online Safety Bill — an analsis | Edward Kendall
The news headlines have understandably been swamped of late with stories about Putin, Ukraine, and the rising cost of living, but this has meant that some very important stories have been missed.
One such important story, which didn’t provoke nearly enough media attention, was the news that on Thursday 17th March the government put the nefarious Online Safety Bill before parliament for its first reading in the House of Commons. Unnoticed by the vast majority of the populace, it has now already passed its second reading on 19th April and is now in the committee stage.
Barrister Francis Hoar, in his report on freedom of speech which was launched last year, criticised the bill for imposing “upon websites a duty to remove content that could ‘harm’ not just children but adults: harm caused by words and (quite possibly) ideas.” He claims that a state “that assumes responsibility for protecting its subjects (the word “citizen” does not seem apt) from what it determines is harmful is a dangerous edifice indeed.”
He criticises the UK government for apparently having formed the view “that it is responsible for the safety of every scared and vulnerable individual from risks that were once treated as part of living.” Whilst protecting children from harm is laudable, we are well on the way to becoming a nanny-state when the government insists on protecting consenting adults from harm.
The report’s foreword was written by esteemed ex-Supreme Court Judge Lord Sumption, who pointed out that knowledge advances “by confronting contrary arguments not by suppressing them.” He acknowledges that the beliefs and opinions of people can often be downright silly or even harmful, but insists that we “can’t have truth without accommodating error.” All of which I would have thought to be common sense, but the problem with common sense is that sadly it is often not especially common - hence the need for a specially-commissioned report outlining the importance of protecting one of our most basic liberties.
The 50-page report suggested legal reforms which would provide British residents with free speech rights akin to those provided by the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
Besides the shelving of the Online Safety Bill, the suggestions include:
The police losing their power to investigate “non-crime hate incidents” and the shelving of the Scottish Hate Crime Bill.
Social media websites being prohibited from censoring content unless their publication would constitute a criminal offence or civil wrong.
Employers being prohibited from firing employees on the grounds that they have expressed apparently “unacceptable” opinions outside work.
All very sensible suggestions and in keeping with Orthodox Conservative’s manifesto, but the seeming stagnation in convincing institutions and people of the need for free speech means, as Hoar points out in his concluding remarks, that there also needs to be a “revolution in public outlook” alongside legal change.
The report, however, seems to have been much-ignored and has failed to garner much media attention. This is unfortunate, especially given that the government has decided to steam ahead with the much-criticised bill.
Seemingly proving Shakespeare’s point that sorrows don’t come singly but in battalions, the bill had its first reading within days of Russian state broadcaster Russia Today being taken off-air in the UK. It is ironic that on the one hand our politicians make heavy weather about helping a smaller nation such as Ukraine face a well-armed aggressor run by an autocrat who doesn’t respect media freedom, whilst at the same time remaining tacitly silent if not explicitly complicit in Ofcom’s decision to take RT off-air.
This decision not only restricts the right of a broadcaster to express itself, but also restricts the freedom of the people to hear the Russian viewpoint (however deluded it may seem). Simply put, myself and many others want to be able to know what the other side is thinking (or being told to think) and this should be a basic liberty in any liberal democracy worth its salt.
Government is by no means the only participant in this wave of censorship, for Youtube too has gone down the same path by removing all of RT’s content on the platform (irrespective of whether or not the posts in question relate to the current conflict in Ukraine).
Indeed, social media firms are some of the most censorious of institutions in the Western world and we have seen this not only with YouTube but also with Twitter over the past few years. It comes as welcome news, therefore, that free-speech advocate Elon Musk has recently purchased Twitter. If only he could purchase YouTube too!
In a statement released on April 25th announcing his Twitter take-over, he described free speech as “the bedrock of a functioning democracy” and Twitter as the “digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.” In a tweet posted that same day he said, “I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means.”
In a tweet posted the following day, Musk made clear what his vision of free speech might mean for the future of the social media platform. “By ‘free speech’, I simply mean that which matches the law. I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law,” Musk wrote. “If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect. Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people.”
This is all very well if the law protects freedom of speech, but gives little satisfaction to those who live in jurisdictions where free speech is not legally protected. This is really the crux of the matter and why the legal protection of free speech is so important. Furthermore, this is why it is so important to make sure that the Online Safety Bill is shelved or at the very least significantly changed, because freedom of speech online is seriously imperilled by this draft legislation.
On the very same evening of the day in which the Online Safety Bill was put before parliament and the day before Ofcom revoked RT’s broadcasting licence, the Free Speech Union hosted a book launch and signing of Jacob Mchangama’s book on the history of free speech - Free Speech: A Global History from Socrates to Social Media.
This is a much-needed work that shines a light on the long philosophical history that lies behind one of our most cherished liberties, and the struggle waged by brave individuals to make it a normative part of life in Western liberal democracy.
Where John Stuart Mill has left off, Mchangama continues in this hefty tome of a work. Indeed, it is far more comprehensive than Mill’s celebrated work. American conservative commentator P.J. O’Rourke has described the work as the “best history of free speech ever written and the best defense of free speech ever made.” He adds that Mchangama “never loses sight of the trouble freedom causes but always keeps in mind that lack of freedom creates horrors.”
What Mchangama has done is provide a robust defence to an abstract concept that is increasingly being questioned by students and so-called intellectuals in our universities and institutions.
We say that we believe in free speech, but when questioned as to why we often fail to provide any convincing reasons beyond the belief that free speech is a good in itself. We can and must do better than that and Mchangama provides us with the arguments and means to do so.
For instance, one of the modern-day criticisms of free speech is that it is merely a concept invented by the apparently racially-privileged folk on the political right to justify the propagation of all variety of abhorrent views, but as Mchangama deftly points out it is the left and racial minorities who have been the traditional beneficiaries of freedom of speech.
At Orthodox Conservatives, as stated in our manifesto, we believe that freedom of speech “needs to be robustly defended” because the “best way to increase tolerance and understanding in society is to facilitate the free, frank and robust exchange of ideas.”
This will undoubtedly mean that people will hear others say things that shock and offend them, but as George Orwell points out (in his unpublished preface to Animal Farm) “if liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
We welcome, therefore, both the launch of Francis Hoar’s report last year and the publication of Jacob Mchangama’s book this year at a time when such articulate defences of this freedom are sorely needed.
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