You’re Too Young To Read This

It took David Blunkett decades to admit his mistake over IPP sentences, although nothing has yet come of his recantation. We must hope that the awakening of Nadine Dorries to the failure of the Online Safety Act will lead to speedier action, as Jake Hurfurt writes:

Last summer, as the Online Safety Act came into force, there was a spate of news stories that amounted to an epitaph for a free internet in Britain. Forums about environmentally friendly living, fixed gear cycling and lower league football clubs all went offline while social media posts from politicians about pro-natalism, joke fantasy football team names and news reporting on wars in Gaza and Ukraine were all placed behind demands for proof of age.

Warning signs about the OSA’s chilling effect on free speech popped up quickly, but a year on it is clear the law must be scrapped. A new Big Brother Watch report, Britain’s Free Speech Problem, highlights how the law has rolled back free speech online.

Even the mother of the Online Safety Act, Nadine Dorries, agrees it has gone off the deep end. The Secretary of State who steered the law through Parliament dubbed it a “dog’s dinner” that fails to protect children or free speech.

The Online Safety Act, a law ostensibly about protecting children from porn and pro-self harm content online, had started to bite. Many small forums, who cannot deal with the 100+ pages of Ofcom forms required to remain compliant, have simply shut down. Bigger platforms introduced digital bouncers across the internet, demanding “papers please” to access all kinds of content far beyond the limited categories the law requires tech providers to age-gate.

Digital ID for the internet is not the solution for keeping children safe online — but even the most ardent defender of the Great British Firewall must see that the OSA is a failure. That is why we have a steady drumbeat of demands for ever more draconian web restrictions.

Despite the OSA having a nominal duty to protect free speech, the reality is that Big Tech companies were never going to build UK-only tools to only censor the specific types of content the law required. Instead they repurposed existing flags for “mature” or “not safe for work” posts and put them behind a digital age barrier.

Criteria for an account or a post on Reddit to be slapped with a NSFW tag are broad and shrouded in mystery although the platform’s rules suggest that any “graphic or offensive” content, including swearing, trigger the tag. Ironically some discussions on the subreddit for moderator advice about what exactly was NSFW required ID.

For our investigation Big Brother Watch downloaded months worth of Reddit posts from a handful of large communities (it is the last platform where researchers can easily access large chunks of data for analysis). Digging through we found posts on almost every imaginable topic had been put behind a digital velvet rope. But after lifting the digital curtain via a VPN, it was clear that they did not meet the OSA’s threshold for age verification and most of them you would be happy to look at with your elderly grandmother. 

The examples spanned from the mundane to the ridiculous and the heartwrenching. Posts from a man who was seeking advice on putting together a care package for a friend about to undergo prostate cancer treatments and a family looking for guidance on supporting an alcohol-dependent relative at risk of domestic violence. Threads on the iconic 1970s New Jersey punk bank the Misfits, the dystopian thriller Children of Men (rated suitable for 15 year olds by the BBFC) and behind the scenes footage of how a sculpture for Arnold Schwarzenegger was built for the 2015 Terminator reboot.

News reporting did not escape the ID demands, either. Posts about BBC News pieces about alleged Israeli “triple-tap” strikes in Lebanon, working conditions faced by Meta moderators in Kenya, and a Manchester Evening News article on comments by Green MP Hannah Spencer saying high streets in her area had too many “bookies and vape shops” were all age gated. With the voting age slated to drop to 16 we will soon be in a situation where teenagers cannot access discussions about current affairs online, but are expected to vote for politicians to influence them.

In the early days of the law silly examples of digital age gates could be viewed as teething problems. A year on they have become a feature, not a bug, limiting free discussion on the internet to anyone unwilling to give faceless Big Tech companies their passport or a scan of their face. Ms Dorries argues that “the safest commercial decision is often to censor first and ask questions later” and she is right. Faced with the threat of massive fines, who wouldn’t be over-cautious in their approach.

One year on it is clear that the digital censor’s charter must be scrapped – it is undermining free speech in this country. When the woman who steered the OSA through Parliament agrees and most ordinary Britons think free speech is getting worse in this country the government must act to review laws limiting our speech and chalk the OSA up as a failed experiment. It is time for Andy Burnham to scrap the Online Safety Act and review Britain’s anti-free speech laws.