Online Safety Bill Update
Currently, still in draft format, the Online Safety Bill which is still to be passed by the UK government is continuously being amended due to the amount of content which needs to be added to this legislation, which once passed will create the biggest change that online safety has seen. Holding organisations and individuals accountable for harmful and unlawful actions online, the bill aims to encourage responsibility and innovation for changes to be made in the online world in order to protect those previously affected and those who may become victims in the future through the development of regulatory frameworks tackling areas of online harm such as cyberflashing, revenge porn, human trafficking and so much more.
This blog is the start of an on-going series which will follow the developments and changes made to the Online Safety Bill, throughout the course of the year as it is continuously assessed and re-evaluated by the British government.
A current new development could see social media platforms being fined 10% of their global turnover if they fail to remove harmful content which is considered to be ‘genuinely threatening’ or ‘knowingly false’. By making the inclusion of harmful content a criminal offence on online platforms, the online safety bill is declaring that social media networks in particular must actively put in place mechanisms and measures to prevent and stop illegal activity and content.
In a previous blog we discussed the devastating effect that the spread of misinformation online regarding, in particular, health and science can have on public health and opinion, and although this is not a new problem, the world which has been created online only enhances the spread of ‘fake news’ further, making it more accessible than ever. With this coming to a head during the Coronavirus pandemic over the last two years, it is easy to understand why such regulations have been added to the Online Safety Bill in order to try and eliminate false information influencing hate speech and violence, both online and in-person. The need for the removal of online hate speech has also become even more prevalent recently due to the obscene amount of racial abuse which football players have been subjected to on social media networks. Again, further emphasising the need for such regulations and legislation to be implemented into the Online Safety Bill to ensure the comfort and safe use of all online-based platforms.
On top of the announcement of these new amendments to the bill, advice has been given to social media companies from the UK government’s culture secretary to begin making changes to their platforms now, to allow time to amend their technology before these changes become legal when the bill is passed. Victims of hate speech and their families have called for mandatory age verification online and emphasised the need for this type of tool to be utilised on all sizes of platforms and not just the giants of the social media world to ensure that young people in particular are not subjected to unnecessary harmful content online.
There is also concern as to whether financial fines and implications are enough to ensure that the main runners in the social media world take responsibility for their actions and the care of their users. Asking the question, if like, Meta where money seems to roll in on convaire belt, is 10% enough to make the large social media platforms care?
