New UK Prime Minister Says Online Safety Bill Needs ‘Tweaks’

The bill was proposed by the conservative UK government to protect internet users from harmful online content, which includes racist, antisemitic, and abusive images and messages from third-party users. Adult entertainment industry members have followed the passage of the Online Safety Bill because it explicitly targets adult websites and penalizes their operators if proper age restriction protocols aren’t in place. Penalties also include jail time for technology companies executives who withhold information from UK digital regulators.

Holding her first PM Questions press conference at 10 Downing Street some days ago, Truss said “What I want to make sure of is that we protect underage teens from harm, but we also want to make sure free speech is allowed.” Financial Times reports that these “tweaks” will include efforts to continue reworking the definition of “legal but harmful,” per the provisions of the proposed Online Safety Bill.

In a column for the UK edition of The New Statesman, Kir Nuthi, a senior policy analyst for the Washington, DC-based Center for Data Innovation, noted that Truss faces significant challenges in ensuring a balance of freedom of speech and robust digital regulations.

“The bill needs significant amendments in order to balance the preservation of free speech, removal of problematic content, and protection of UK users,” wrote Nuthi, a UK citizen, adding that the “legal but harmful language within the bill by moving certain types of content from the lawful category to the unlawful one. This way, they’d be able to ensure that free speech isn’t overly moderated by online services.”

Although the Online Safety Bill is a product of right-wing members of the Conservative Party, there have been critics in the party who have opposed the bill due to its perceived threats to infringe on digital speech in the United Kingdom. YNOT previously reported that back-bench Tory MPs have openly criticized former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his predecessors for pushing for such legislation.

A more recent overture comes from a former UK Supreme Court judge in a piece for The Spectator published last month. Jonathan Sumption, the former judge, explicitly opposes the restrictions on free speech for adults and finds it an abuse of the power of Parliament.

“If the law allows me to receive, retain or communicate some item of information in writing or by word of mouth, how can it rationally prevent me from doing the same thing through the internet?” Sumption asks. TechDirt.com contributor Mike Masnick, blogging on the column by Sumption, noted that “making these kinds of calls at scale, when no one can even agree what the content is, is bound to be a disaster.”

Policymaking and the affairs of Parliament are currently on hold as the United Kingdom conducts ten days of mourning for the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. Business as usual will return upon the conclusion of this period of mourning.

Liz Truss photo via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the United Kingdom Open Government Licence v3.0. It has been resized.