What is the Online Safety Bill?
The Online Safety Bill is a new law being drafted by the UK government right now. It will mean many of the legal things you and millions of other people put on your personal social media accounts will be deleted automatically – while leaving politicians exempt from these new rules.
This will create two tiers of free speech online: free speech for journalists and politicians, but censorship for ordinary citizens - unless we each act now and work together now to put a stop to it.
This new law would outsource internet policing from the UK courts, police and Parliament to Silicon Valley tech companies. It would force them to delete posts that are totally legal under the law passed but could be considered “harmful.” Shockingly the new law doesn’t define what is and isn’t harmful and so tech companies will be pushed to over-censor to avoid massive fines. The bill has the right aims – to make it easier to deal with illegal images of child sexual abuse, terrorist material and content which incites racial hatred and violence. But worryingly the bill makes it even harder to bring these criminals to justice because it forces platforms to delete valuable evidence before the victims of targeted harassment or threats can report it to the police.
CAMPAIGN PLAN
May 2021
The Government publishes a draft of the Online Safety Bill which would be catastrophic for freedom of speech and make it even harder for law enforcement to properly hold online abusers accountable.
2021 - Step 1
Email your MP so they know the public supports online free speech.
2022 - Step 2
Amend the Online Safety Bill when it reaches Parliament so it protects freedom of expression and ensures law enforcement can properly hold abusers to account.