he online Safety Bill in its current form is a “mess” and needs to be “totally rewritten,” said a leading digital human rights lawyer.
dr. Susie Alegre has written a legal op-ed warning that the proposed internet security laws fail to address the root causes of online harm, such as the systems that recommend messages to users, and that the laws also threaten free speech.
The Government has committed to reintroducing the much delayed Online Safety Bill to parliament soon, with Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan said this week that ministers were “working full” to deliver it, after previously suggesting some changes to the legislation would be made.
The Online Safety Bill is a mess and needs to be completely rewritten. As it stands, it offers the worst of both worlds
But dr. Alegre said the entire bill needed work, writing that it was poorly drafted with “broad and opaque” definitions that will make it difficult for companies to know what to do.
She also said the bill also focused too much on controlling types of content rather than addressing the “algorithmic systems and design features” that underlie the largest platforms.
“The Online Safety Bill is a mess and needs to be completely rewritten. As it stands now, it offers the worst of both worlds,” she said.
“It not only threatens freedom of speech, freedom of expression and privacy, but does not do enough to address the real causes of online harm, such as social media companies actively recommending posts of self-harm, which contributed to the tragic suicide of teenager Molly Russell.”
In her opinion piece, which was commissioned by consumer campaign group SumOfUs, Dr. Alegre said the bill “focuses too much on the moderation of content and the impact of user-generated content on individuals,” meaning it “fails to put in place serious checks on the systems that cause harm online, especially the many ways personal data is used for profiling, targeting and content management”.
She adds that this focus on content moderation in turn poses new threats to free speech and privacy online.
dr. Alegre also said attempts to meet competing demands from campaigners on all sides meant the bill was “at the same time too narrow and too broad to address the underlying issues leading to online harm”.
While child safety campaigners have repeatedly called for increased protections and tougher restrictions on content moderation in the bill, free speech advocates have expressed concern about online censorship as a side effect of the proposed rules.
More than five years in the making, the online safety law in its current form would require social media and other platforms to protect their users from harmful content, with hefty fines and the threat of having their site blocked if they are found to be violating the new law. rules, which will be verified by Ofcom.
The largest platforms will also be required to fight specific types of content identified as legal but harmful, and companies are expected to state in their terms of service how they will address this harm.
A spokesperson for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) said: “This is a completely mischaracterization of the bill, which will give tech companies much-needed responsibility to protect children and tackle criminal activity, including for the way their algorithms cause online damage.
“The focus of the law is on the systems and processes of technology companies, not on the regulation of individual pieces of content. However, ministers are considering how to further strengthen the protection of freedom of expression in the bill.”