We examine the Online Safety Bill and its implications following recent announcements that it will be toughened.
What Is The Online Safety Bill For?
UK government’s Online Safety Bill is (draft) legislation designed to place ‘duty of care’ requirements on companies that host user-generated content.
The idea of the Online Safety Bill is essentially to prevent the spread of illegal content and activity (e.g., images of child abuse, terror material, and hate crimes), as well as to protect children from harmful material, and also to protect adults from legal but harmful content.
The Bill applies to social media platforms, video-sharing platforms, search engines, and other tech services. The law requires them to put in place systems and processes to remove illegal content as soon as they become aware of it. The Bill also requires these services to take additional proactive measures concerning the most harmful ‘priority’ forms of illegal online content.
Priority
The draft bill lists terrorism, child sexual abuse, and exploitation as priority offenses. Once the Bill becomes law, the Secretary of State of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport will be able to add other priority offenses through secondary legislation.
Other Illegal Behaviour
The Bill can also be applied to other illegal behaviour, including more activities recently made illegal, which have emerged alongside the ability to target individuals or communicate en masse online.
In summary, the main groups of offences that the Bill now covers are encouraging or assisting suicide.
Strengthened Recently
There has been criticism that the scope of the original bill did not go far enough and that services/films would only be forced to remove content after it was reported.
The Bill has now been strengthened (hence the extensive list of offences shown above). On 4 Feb this year, Digital Secretary Nadine Dorries announced that the Bill had been supported in the following ways:
- The addition of extra priority illegal offences, i.e. revenge porn, hate crime, fraud, the sale of illegal drugs or weapons, the promotion or facilitation of suicide, people smuggling and sexual exploitation. The naming of the new offences is designed to remove the need to be set out in secondary legislation later. The government says that it will also enable Ofcom (which issues the fines under the Bill) to take quicker enforcement against tech businesses that fail to remove the named illegal content.
Three More New Offences Being Considered
The government is also considering the Law Commission’s recommendations for three other offences to be created and added to the Online Safety Bill. Cyber flashing, encouraging self-harm, and epilepsy trolling.
In July, the Commission recommended that other new offences, which the Digital Secretary has only just confirmed, be created and legislated for in the Online Safety Bill. These are harmful and abusive emails, harmful social media posts and WhatsApp messages, as well as ‘pile-on’ harassment. These new offences do not apply to regulated media – print and online journalism, TV, radio, and film.
Named Individuals
One significant aspect of the debate around the Online Safety Bill is naming specific individuals/executives in offending companies. The draft Bill, for example, already included the ability to impose criminal sanctions on named tech executives. However, these sanctions (i.e. prison sentences) have initially been delayed for two years (a grace period) after the laws were passed. Still, some UK MPs have been asking the government to remove this long grace period before criminal sanctions can be faced. Digital Secretary Nadine Dorries, who has personal experience of having been targeted by trolls, is believed to favour a six months’ timeline (grace period) before the imposition of prison terms for those tech execs who fail to remove “harmful algorithms”.
Freedom and Legal Commentators
Freedom groups, such as the Index on Censorship and the Open Rights Groups, have expressed concerns about Silicon Valley companies. Some legal commentators have also expressed concern that the bill allows the government to delegate all aspects of investigating and making judgements about online crimes to the tech companies/social media platforms.
Tech Companies
The big social media platforms have expected the Bill for some time. Although they have given no significant reactions to the most recent announcements, they are thought to agree with its aims broadly. For example, Monica Bickert, vice-president of content policy at Meta (Facebook), said recently (in the Telegraph): “While we won’t agree with all the details, we’re pleased the Online Safety Bill is moving forward.”
Other Comments and Criticism
The NSPCC recently criticised the Bill (in an open letter to Nadine Dorries) for not doing enough to safeguard children’s rights. Labour has also stated that the bill needs to include stricter sanctions for executives who violate the new laws.
Enforcement
Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, will be responsible for issuing fines for offences under the Bill. For example, Ofcom will be able to impose penalties of up to 10 percent of annual worldwide turnover on non-compliant sites or block their access in the UK.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
Tech companies, mainly social media platforms, have been forced to make changes for several years now in response to a series of trust-damaging events (e.g. Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal, the platform’s use for influence in the previous US election and the UK referendum), pressure from governments, and widespread concerns from users about the safety of young and vulnerable people online. The government sees the recently boosted powers of the (draft) Online Safety Bill to send a much clearer message now to online services that these issues now need to be taken more seriously. The threat of possible prison terms for executives is designed to make companies notice and make more changes. Facebook already appears to have started morphing into something different for the future (Meta). For example, Twitter’s co-founder Jack Dorsey stepped down last November. The Bill’s aims appear noble regarding the extra protections against a much more comprehensive range of offences that it may offer. Although, it remains to be seen how well it will work when it passes into law and whether it should be strengthened further.
